Night Blade - Children of The Lily 1
by Becks
Summary: Lynx Redfern is a Nightworld Assassin.... More Inside
1. Part 1

  
  
Lynx Redfern is the Night World's premier assassin and hell bent on her own destruction.   
The Youngest daughter of the Lily and wielder of a deadly blade forged long before even the   
Redfern line. Love, hatred and death surround her as her sanity slowly crumbles until she   
is given one final chance to redeem both herself and the sword by which she was named,   
there is only one cost. Her soulmates life.   
  
Ahem, Ryars Valley and Cougar Redfern Belong to Kiana, check her out at her own   
site or at the Twilight Tales Archive the rest is either mine or L.J Smiths :)  
  
  
  
  
  
It was dark outside, it was dark inside too it sounded almost metaphorical   
she thought with a slight smile, but since when were Redfern's metaphorical?   
There had been a power cut in New York this evening and even as   
she stared out of the penthouse window the lights began to flicker   
back into existence; a thousand man made fireflies drowning out the stars.   
  
Her half smile stayed as the door bell rang although it was   
now fixed in place her eyes shifting from their normal gold to an   
icy blue that heralded fury even as she opened the door "Good evening   
Ash" She looked at the cousin she had the most respect for with   
little patience, she couldn't say she liked him, to be quite honest   
she couldn't say she liked any one but right now she didn't want   
company but her voice remained icily polite   
  
"What can I do for the Redfern's prodigal son?" he looked   
down at her slightly, which was irritating at 5'9 not many people   
looked down at her at all "I have a letter for you" she raised one   
eyebrow and flicked a blood coloured curl back over her shoulder   
cursing it mentally for slipping out of its tight braid "If it's   
important enough not to be trusted to the post then you'd better   
bring it in" she stepped back and ushered him past her into the   
living room from which plate glass window she had been staring then   
she held out her hand "Give" he handed her the rolled scrap of parchment   
and she frowned "Parchment, that isn't like the council" she turned   
the roll over to the seal and found a fine layer of champagne coloured   
wax impressed with a rising sun this time both eyebrow lifted and   
her eyes slid back into their normal amber gold "Daybreak" it was   
a thousand questions in a word and Ash dropped his eyes she was   
surprised he didn't blush "Ah" she said and suddenly both sides   
of her mouth turned up it wasn't a smile but it conveyed the same   
effect and was unexpectedly charming in the chiselled features of   
Lily Redfern's youngest child "You have submitted gracefully to the family curse I see"   
  
She watched his shoulders stiffen with concealed mischief   
and then broke the seal her whole expression changing "Merde" the   
fact she had sworn at all brought Ash's head up the fact her face   
was still blankly inscrutable brought a look of confusion   
which seemed to bring back her good humour "Tell Theirry   
Descoudres" she said in a charming voice "That he isn't offering   
nearly enough to get me into Ryars Valley" she watched Ash to make   
sure he had that in his head "And I don't think even HE has enough   
money in the bank to get me to make this kill" she watched Ash stiffen   
and curled up one side of her lip in a sneer "Oh please, why do   
you think you were sent to me?" she quietly walked him to the door   
and then shut it quite calmly in his face and returned to looking   
out over the night her face a study in marble as her fingers delicately crushed the parchment  



	2. Part 2

  
  
  
She was still staring out of the window when the sun came up,  
then with a sigh she tossed the parchment into her incinerator and   
walked into the bedroom. There she stripped off the jeans and tee shirt  
she had been wearing when Ash had turned up on her doorstep and pulled  
on a pair of black leather pants "Images" she murmured under her breath  
"Who wants them?" she slipped on a black bra and followed it with a  
black silk shirt over that she pulled on a lace up sleeveless black  
leather bodice. It looked a conceit, to make her look more feminine,  
although most people had to admit there was no way she'd ever look   
like a boy; what it really was, was body armour. This bodice had   
stopped a stake three times; if Lynx had believed in luck then this   
was a lucky top, since she didn't it was simply effective.  
  
Five minutes later she was in her Ferrari and pelting down the  
road, the tinted windows were enough to get her stopped but the police   
never would. Not with the number plates she was flashing, she thanked   
the small amount of government work she had done for the gift of a set   
of CIA plates. The mobile phone on the dashboard rang as she turned   
into a driveway of one of the out of town mansions, she picked it up   
with a curt "Redfern" her mouth curled up at one side into a satiric   
smile "Certainly, give me" she looked up at the house on the horizon  
"about half a minute" she parked diagonally in front of the rather   
impressive colonial style front door and slipped out like a shadow of   
fire on the white gravel drive, she slipped up the marble steps and   
running her fingers up the veined columns found the doorbell and pushed.  
  
The door swung open on a made vampire who appeared around 19   
"Nillson" it was a greeting and a question in one he simply nodded and   
let her into the hall "Third door on the right at the top of the stairs" She nodded her thanks in a mimicry of his precise movement and strode across the hall and up the stairs and paused for a moment outside the door she had been directed too "Who was that?" a light pretty voice, human, the questioning note in it nothing new "A visitor miss" impatience entered the voice " I know that, but who?" "She's a Redfern miss, and one who should never be allowed here" at that a smile curved her lips and she knocked, it was good to be appreciated.  
  
Inside she was confronted by the veritable Daybreak firing   
squad but she had a photographic memory so there was no difficulty   
"Good morning" she turned to them "Quinn, Rashel, James its been a   
long time, Poppy, Ash" and finally she turned to the man behind the   
desk backed by the pretty teenager with the birthmark and she performed  
a slight bow, equal to equals "Lord Descoudres and Hannah" with that   
she relaxed into a standing position "I hope you've brought me here on   
profitable business or it will have been a waste of petrol"   
She felt Rashel stiffen she had been told of the girls righteous   
angers from an associate of hers who had run into her when she was a   
beginner with the lancers "Mercenary!" it was spat out like a swear   
word, Lynx raised an arched eyebrow "Of course" she directed a slightly  
incredulous look Theirry's way "Surely you've told them what I do?" he   
shook his head, obviously using his centuries of patience to stay   
silent in this dispute "My dear girl," she drawled "Mercenary isn't an   
insult, in fact it could be taken as a step up, I'm an assassin by   
trade" she watched muscles stiffen with an inward smirk "A very   
expensive, very well connected assassin to be exact" and with a curse   
Rashel went for her, her mind slipped up a notch and her eyes went   
a feral silver as she brought a foot up and slammed her back, aiming   
her so that she smacked into Quinn. Ash put a hand on her shoulder   
"Alinx" it was a plea from when as children they had played together   
"This once Ash, for old times sake, but I will not be threatened   
or attacked" she felt his nod and turned back to Thierry "I will wait   
downstairs while you control your children She turned to Ash, "I'd   
like to meet the fascinatingly curious woman downstairs" She watched   
him pale and made a series of quick snap judgements "Your Soulmate I   
believe."  
  
  



	3. Part 3

  
  
Thanks to my Reviewers Dark Angel and Camilla may the little god of   
plots visit you both :) yes i did send this to TTales but never the  
finished article becasue NO ONE EVER REVIEWED!!! (sorry pet peeve)  
Now on with the show.....   
  
  
  
  
She could almost feel Ash's apprehension "I'm not going to   
kill her Ash" she felt him almost slump behind her "Unless someone   
pays me" she heard the breath whistle in through his teeth "Don't   
trust me Ash" it was as close to a plea as Lynx was ever likely to get   
and Ash recognised that fact "I can't help it" she leant her hip   
against the banister looking down the stairs towards the doors   
"We played together when we were children, so what, when you did the   
same sort of work I did then it was fine, then I could do you favours,   
but not now Ash; never now" she looked up at his face, but there was   
a sort of confused pain and his eyes were an almost blue black   
"I wish I knew who you were" she was about to make a smiling reply   
that meant nothing when a voice piped up from the bottom of the stairs   
"She's a Redfern Ash, like you"   
  
It was almost an instinctive reaction, she slid down the   
banister vaulting lightly over the ornamentation at the end before   
landing on her feet and lightly prowling around the girl, Dark hair   
and blue eyes, honest to a fault, can she be manipulated. Yes. She   
smiled the dazzling Redfern grin that tended to blind people, except   
Redfern's. Yep even the soulmates of Redfern's she thought seeing the   
slightly dazzled air in the girls eyes "I'm Lynx Redfern, Ash's   
cousin/aunt" she saw the slightly puzzled look cross her eyes and   
explained in a genial tone "My mother is Ash's grandfathers Aunt,   
its like that in our family" she saw the look on Ash's face and   
made a mental pout *Can't I even play anymore?* she felt the   
considering silence, this Mary Lynnette, as she picked the name from   
his mind, may be his soulmate but he's still the cat I grew up with,   
never could resist a challenge *Ok, but no rough stuff* *Ash* she   
mentally laughed *You wound me* she was about to put plan two of her   
amusement into play when Theirry's voice rang out from the top of the   
stairs "Twenty Million"  
  
There was a moments silence at the huge amount before   
Lynx drawled into the silence "This isn't about money Theirry"   
he came down the stairs "What is it about then Lynx, for you its   
always been money" "Not always Theirry" everyone was privileged then   
to see the eldest and most composed lord of the Night World wince and   
then bow his head in admission "No, not always" even Ash looked   
confused and she looked grim she knew "Then offer me what I want   
Theirry" he shook his head looking at the ground "I can't" she nodded   
and walked to the door, in the shadows of the archway she paused   
"When you change your mind, send Mary Lynnette, I'll only see her"   
A moment later everyone in the hall heard the acceleration of a high   
performance engine. There was a dead silence until Hannah asked "When?"   
  
  



	4. Part 4

  
  
Thanks to Diomede :)   
  
  
  
  
Theirry looked exhausted suddenly as if all the burdens of keeping   
light in the Night World had suddenly descended on his shoulders all   
at once. "Yes love, when" He turned towards one of the small doors at   
the end of the hall and re entered Ash wrapped one arm around Mary   
Lynnette and pulled her upstairs she gently touched his mind with the   
soulmate connection ~What's going on? Why me?~ Ash shook his head in   
denial of any knowledge, the inner workings of Lynx's mind had always   
been beyond him when they were children, and now, now she was even more  
locked up than then. He pushed open the door and watched as Theirry   
began to argue and explain away her visit.  
  
"I don't see why a circle daybreak team can't just go after who   
ever this is, we've busted worse" The Night lord looked hard at her "I   
don't make a habit of explaining myself, but this once I will make an   
exception" he looked down at the floor before looking to Hannah taking   
her hand and sitting both of them down at a couch his arm wrapped   
around her almost for comfort. "I won't send a circle daybreak team   
because then all your deaths would be on my conscience and I'd rather   
not have that" He waited out the storm of outcries that he should have  
known would have happened in a room full of Daybreaks best Ash thought   
with a tinge of amusement, he stayed silent, he knew Lynx; but even he   
had no warning for Theirry's next set of blows.   
  
"I'm sure you have all heard of the Night Blade, Hunters pet   
assassin?" Most people nodded but it was Quinn that came out with the   
piece of trivia "Assassins, there has been a Night Blade since the dawn  
of this age, since Hunter couldn't just have people executed" Theirry   
inclined his head with a slight smile in deference to Quinn's inner   
knowledge of Hunters operation. "Exactly, well before the second wild   
power rid us of Hunter, to the best of my knowledge Lynx was the   
current Night Blade"   
  
There was a small silence but Ash was thinking his mind running   
a million words a minute over all he'd ever learnt during his career.   
"I could imagine Lynx being the Blade, but it's almost a partnership,   
who was her sheath, who kept her sane?" For a moment the night lord   
looked taken aback then his eyes became grim "You believe her sane then  
Ash, the night Worlds premier assassin?" Ash nodded "I know her"   
Hannah interrupted at this moment her grey eyes serious "We were   
discussing not the why but the when, Theirry?" he soulmate sighed as   
if he had been caught "It's a when because she knows that I would be   
willing to risk her but none of you, and the price" he stopped for a   
moment his eyes darkened and then hidden by pale lids. "The price is   
merely her soulmate's life"   
  
There was no saving silence anymore and it was the women who   
broke it and they turned on a preoccupied Ash. "And you say she's sane"   
"You defend her?" he ignored them until quiet reigned and then he   
turned to Theirry his eyes a hunting gold that was rarely there. "You   
know why, he deserves it" Theirry nodded agreement written on his face   
"I know, but does she?" and at that Ash was truly silent.  
  
****  
In the penthouse apartment Lynx was again at her window this time   
though the view held no interest. She was staring at the bare blade   
that lay across her knees. The hilts were worked in silver and onyx   
and the blade was of obsidian, greeny/black glass hardened millennia   
ago to adamantium strength. Down its length were engraved in Drake   
runes the names of the wielders ending with hers, she had a feeling   
that naming her blade heir soon could be a wise precaution. But to   
give it up... it was a deadly beauty but as seductive as the sirens to   
ancient sailors, she stood and ran through some simple moves, fast as   
only a vampire who had trained life long could be. She recalled doing   
this with Ash and smiled slightly her eyes were a comfortable normal   
gold. Not much time had passed, but much life and much death, for both   
her and her blood brother. Yes, it was nearly time, she only had one   
thing left to do she thought as she settled back in front of the window  
; if only Thierry would co operate.  



	5. Part 5

  
She was walking alone through the back streets of London, her mind wandering in comfortable   
speculation. Her first job as the Nights first lady of death would have set any human up for   
life and it looked to be easy. She wasn't troubled by her conscience, she had had one once but   
not now, it had gone at some point during her training. Coiled up in the bottom of her soul   
wrapped in iron along with the remnants of her humanity. That was a laughable conceit, she was a   
vampire, what did humanity have to do with her except as a convenient fast food outlet? She   
whipped around, there was a buzzing noise, a nightscope? A high powered crossbow....  
  
She snapped awake throwing knife poised in one hand and a night knife under the covers   
in another. She came down from battle readiness with a shudder "I have to get that damn buzzer   
changed" she murmured and slid out of bed and into her wardrobe, a moment later dressed in   
casual blue jeans and a white cashmere sweater she was at the telecom and looking down into the   
private elevator that led to the entrance hall of the penthouse. "Good morning Mary Lynette, can   
I help you in any way?" it wasn't strictly morning at eleven forty-eight but she had only been   
in bed seven hours and it felt like morning. The girl looked up at the camera while the infra   
red lens picked out the light wire she was wearing as well as the fact she was packing a stake,   
probably provided by the irascible Rashel. "Can I come up?" Lynx smiled to herself *Predictable*   
"Of course you may dear child, and since you're a connection of Ash's I'll even turn off the   
surveillance camera while you rid yourself of the wire and that nasty looking stake"  
  
An embarrassed looking Mary Lynette was sitting in Lynx's leather recliner ten minutes   
later rubbing her side, presumably where the stake had worn a groove. "So Miss?" Mary Lynette   
looked startled "Carter, but please, you're a relative of Ash's please call me Mary Lynette?"   
Lynx made an appreciative bow of the head mentally rolling her eyes, no wonder Ash hadn't used   
the legendary Redfern charm to convince her into the change, she'd be like a goldfinch among   
falcons; pretty but ineffectual and defenceless. "Mary Lynette then, why are you here?" the girl   
child blinked a few times, she couldn't stop calling her a child, innocence was all over her   
hardly touched by the night at all, probably still in love with the romance of it all. "Theirry   
sent me, to give you the information you wanted"   
  
Lynx's whole world ground to a stop for a moment she even stopped breathing and her eyes   
went black, seemingly from the pupil outwards. Breath hissed from between her teeth and she felt   
her excitement lengthen her canines and that's when she controlled herself but the blade at her   
hip glimmered eerily a dark indicator of her feelings. "Good, now relax and begin you have all   
the time in the world" Mary Lynette actually looked a little frightened and Lynx winked "I'm not   
going to hurt you" she didn't say the unspoken, yet "But, your soulmate.." Lynx shook her head   
"Don't worry about him, he can take care of himself" The girl sighed and took a deep breath.   
"Theirry said it's strangely convenient because both he and your target are in Ryars Valley,   
apparently he's been settled there for the last two years" the expression on Lynx's face would   
have been a smile. If sharks smiled.   
  
"Thank you Miss Carter, its been a pleasure" Mary Lynette looked at her oddly for a   
moment "Why miss Carter?" Lynx looked at her gold eyes devoid of expression "I hate to be on   
first name terms with some one I may have to A or B" Mary Lynette's puzzled expression didn't   
ease Lynx appeared mildly bored "A is Assassinate and B is bite" she gently pushed Mary Lynette   
to the door and out, just before she shut the door she flashed her fangs "have a nice day" then   
she went inside to pack, she wanted to be out of the city by nightfall.  
  
***  
  
Ash was waiting outside as Mary Lynette stumbled out pupils dilated, and wished for the   
fortieth time that Lynx had given in over the phone and let him come with her. "Baby, are you   
ok?" Mary Lynette looked up at him and some of the innocence was gone from her eyes "How do you   
live in a world like this, with people like Her!" he could hear the capital H on her and wondered  
exactly what Lynx had said to rattle his soulmate, her had tried to keep her out of the darker   
side of the Night World, it seemed that Lynx had decided to bring her a little knowledge. "What   
did she say?" he was curious Lynx was well mannered enough to never be openly sadistic towards   
family members but he'd seen some of her 'jokes' "She wouldn't say my name, she called me Miss   
Carter all the time" Ash nodded "You're a client its professional etiquette" Mary Lynette shook   
her head hair swinging an agitated counterpoint "She said it was in case she ever had to A and B   
me" Ash thought for a moment flicking through all the things those could mean and coming up with   
the two most obvious. Then he laughed.   
  
*Lynx, you evil woman* Lynx's mind caught hold of his   
with a mental sigh *And there was me thinking I was reformed, what have I done now?* *You scared   
my soulmate half out of her wits* *wits? She has some?* Ash sighed *Lynx!* there was no easy   
laugh to her tone though *I've had offers on her Ash, there not high enough right now for   
consideration but they'll get that way, I'd put her in a safe house right now myself.* there was   
a moments considering pause *but not the one at the Alamo I know the way in and out of that one   
way too easily.* Ash was genuinely shocked *You'd hunt her down!*, Lynx's mental voice was sad   
but resigned *For the right price Ash, and as long as your with daybreak ther'll be a right price  
, so either change her or sweet talk the council otherwise she's dead, and hope its me, for old   
times sake I'd make it quick, others I know wouldn't bother* then her mental presence faded out   
like smoke and Ash hustled Mary Lynette towards the car so that he could talk to Theirry.   
And fast.  
  
The borrowed jaguar screeched into the drive of Theirry's manse in record time and Ash leapt out  
and stalked into the entrance hall and slamming past Nillson and up the stairs to the small   
office where he pushed in on one of the Night lords phone conferences and sat down. He had had   
three phone calls since he'd left Lynx's with threats on several of the soulmates and wild powers  
if they didn't keep Lynx out of Ryars Valley. When Theirry finally put down the phone Ash only   
had three words to say but he had an inkling that Theirry would understand "What's. Going. On"   
then he sat back and leant his chair against the door, no interruptions only explanations and he   
had no where to hurry off to.  



	6. Part 6

Many many thanks to everyone whos commented most especially to Diomede,  
any of you who have problems with my commas, sorry, too much to do, too  
little time, treat this as a grammer exercise ;)  
  
  
Theirry still looked tired from the earlier altercations in his office but from the look in his eyes the explanation he had to come wasn't all that pleasant "Ash, you don't want to hear this" Ash's eyebrows rose until they touched his hairline and then he set a tiny Dictaphone on the desk and hit playback, then watched the Night lords face as the threats unwound several of them people specific and one of those people was Hannah. When it stopped Ash spoke "I want to hear this"  
  
The Night lord sighed and leant back in the chair "Very well. how long have you known Lynx Redfern?" Ash looked back mentally at his association with his icy cousin "We were children together when her mother brought her to the island when she was around three years old until hunter took her away with him aged nine then at Hunters 'school' for a little while, so around seven years, I met her again when I was on the job aged around seventeen although I think she was sixteen." Theirry nodded "I'll start the story when she was born then it makes it all easier; and anyway" he half smiled "I was there"   
  
"This isn't a fairy story it wasn't a dark and stormy night in late October it was a particularly beautiful night in mid august when Lily Redfern turned up on my doorstep heavily pregnant by one of the mercenaries she had been stupid enough to fool around with. I say stupid because she had no real interest in him nor he in her but they were both Lamia, and that's what happens." He paused for a moment as if thinking how to go on "I took responsibility there and then, you'd think someone who had two children roaming around the world somewhere already would have known where to go; but according to her the birth was both early and difficult and she of course didn't make her home there and knew of nowhere else to go. So I got her laid up on a couch and called on one of the Harman witches who was in residence at that point to help" The Night lord shook his head "What we didn't expect was twins" he saw Ash's shock and smiled slightly "Yes, first out a squalling little girl with a scraggy mop of red hair and half a minute later a little boy as dark as his mother and both their eyes were gold; which even for Lamia babies is unusual; even your eyes were blue at first according to your mother."   
  
Ash still looked slightly dazed but waved a hand for Theirry to continue "The Harman girl saw them and went white to the lips, I couldn't understand why she dashed out of the room and returned two minutes later with Ishtar Cybele, who was at that point the maiden of all witches but is now the mother, she has a rare healing gift and went to work on Lily immediately she even allowed her to feed from her wrist. when she finally slept she motioned me outside and told me that the children had to be separated and right now" Theirry took a drink of water from the desk and shifted position. "As you can imagine I wanted to know why, they were sweet little children both of them amazingly quiet during the cleanup operation and vampire children were so rare it would have been a triumph for Lily. During the next ten minutes I was to learn why Lamia twins are so rare"   
  
he looked at Ash his eyes suddenly a thousand years old "What Maya did to create the original vampire line the Redfern's was barbaric, but the blood magic demanded a price of her, she would only ever bear one child. So of course the ritual had to be repeated for a woman when Redfern was old enough to breed and they together had twins; but as I said blood magic always had a price. These twin boys were Darken and Shadow one was very cool, very calm and the other was volatile; the problem was that if they got mad at each other they were quite capable of decimating large areas of ground around them and everything in it ." Theirry looked into Ash's eyes to check that this was getting through "The smallest area was fifteen miles in diameter" he bowed his head "Shadow killed Darken in a rage he also wiped out a large are of northern Russia" Ash shook his head to clear it and opened his mouth but Theirry spoke first "This was the curse of vampire twins, to pay for Maya's immortality with their own pain.  
  
'I looked at those babes and for all the things I have done for this world I could not commit infanticide; so I woke Lily and told her that one of the children was very ill and she needed to name them right away. She wasn't concerned she told me 'they're Redfern's they're strong' but she named them anyway. The girl was to be Lynx Redfern and the boy Cougar she said there were too many birds and trees in her family" Theirry paused "I managed to convince her to stay with me for the first three years letting the children grow and flourish together both little firebrands" he smiled briefly in reminiscence before continuing "but on their third birthday when they blew up the living room in an argument over the T.V I knew it was time to separate them, so I faked an accident for Cougar with a large wooden broom handle and sent him to his father. Lynx knew though, you cant fob off twins, they know. But Lily thought he was dead and she cursed me and decided it was time Lynx went to her relatives" Theirry paused then and his eyes were sad "I should have kept her here, but that odd little girl came and forgave me, she said that she couldn't hate me for keeping her brother safe and I wasn't to hate myself for what was going to happen to her" he looked at Ash his half smile was wry "You and James and Her have convinced me there's a gift of prophecy in the Redfern line"   
  
Ash sat in stunned silence for a moment and then spoke up "So she has a twin brother in Ryars Valley, and together they could destroy the world?, and you still sent her there?" Theirry inclined his head "The person who's there has to die and I wouldn't trust anyone else not to botch the job by getting killed, she won't go near Cougar she values his safety I think more than her own, he's the better half of that pair there's still a little tenderness about him that Lynx lost when Hunter took her, if you'll pardon the pun he has retained his humanity" Ash shut his eyes for a moment remembering "She was always a strange little scrap, so much older than the rest of us even while she was younger, that could explain it" He looked at Theirry and saw the older mans pain and made a questioning movement and Theirry answered it "Even forgivness out of the mouths of babes can't absolve me of sending her anywhere near FallenStar" Ash's lips were set "She can take care of herself" Theirry bowed his head and clasped his hands as if in prayer before he spoke "I hope so, by the goddess I hope so" 


	7. Part 7

Lyrics belong to Limb Bizket, all thanks go again to Ki who writes brilliant stuff, if you havent read it before read it now!  
  
  
It was good to see the stars again, if anyone had told Lynx that a fascination with stars showed a romantic nature she would have looked at them askance and then put a high price on their heads. Stars were beautiful and cold like diamonds fixed forever in a sea of black velvet. She had seen her sister in a dress like that once and thought she had looked terrible. But out here in the night it was stark and precise just the way she liked things. There glimmering fitfully on the far horizon were Casper and Pollux in their constellation 'the twins' her own personal symbol etched in smoke grey on all her 'work' clothes. She was a lone twin though, her brother may as well be dead, she was more of a danger to him than their powers could ever be and despite his secrets; or what he thought were secrets, her past was a threat to whatever happiness he had found and she wouldn't break that fragile peace.  
  
Lynx smiled to herself, it was an odd smile one that only two people had ever seen. It gentled stark planes of a face that could be beautiful if she was willing to put on a few ounces of fat to cover those harsh cheekbones. It lightened her eyes to true gold instead of amber darkness and gently moved full lips into a bow shaped curve; it was not altogether her normal sarcastic smile and not altogether happy but it charmed in a an odd way. "Imagine" she murmured to a car she knew to be free from bugs and electronics "Me concerned for someone else, they'd throw me out of the heartless bitch club for sure if they knew"   
  
It was four hours later when she stopped, for all the factors that told her that as a Vampire she had no fear of sunlight it was all a myth she still preferred the hours of darkness, perhaps it was the fact that except for special occasions she worked the night shift. She took the thermos from under her seat and swigged the liquid contained within, umm still blood heat, delivered by the mailman this morning. Then she walked out into the desert simply enjoying the night, as far as she could tell she had no work out here and .......... She sighed, she was no longer alone.  
  
"Come out you rank amateurs, it'll give you a sporting chance" Although I won't she thought pulling out a set of light bombs she had had the local Midnight witch make for her as three people moved out from behind her car and a nearby cactus that had a stunning resemblance to Mickey mouse. "Who sent you?" she managed to put a semi realistic quaver to her tone but she could feel the normal ice cold armour creeping over her earlier contentment and she welcomed it. "The council says say hello to Hunter; Night Blade" a voice rang out of the darkness just before Lynx shut her eyes and threw the enchanted globes.  
  
A lightning flash crossed her lids and she heard three shrieks as she opened her eyes seeing what looked like two wolves and a vampire rubbing their eyes and she rolled her own golden orbs and crossed over to them. She put a silver stake through one of the wolves and slashed the other with the tip of her Night knife across the jugular and then turned to the vampire who by his recovery time was made no more than twenty years ago. She looked into a pair of silver eyes and sighed. "So, who on the council sent you?" he snarled fangs indenting his lower lip attempting to look fierce "Why ssssshould I tell you" Lynx gave a sarcastic grin "You sound like a fourteen year old with braces" he hissed again and she sighed theatrically "You should tell me because I haven't got a time limit on this job and I could take a week out right now just to play with you before you die"   
  
He paled but his eyes remained firmly on her face "Your bluffing, you're a damned Daybreaker and you wouldn't have the guts" Lynx lifted one perfectly arched brow in a motion that had taken weeks of practice "Guts? I'll have yours and sell them to the local shifter butcher if you ever mention me in the same sentence as daybreaker again. I might anyway if you don't tell me what I want to know" she caressed the silver and onyx hilt of the blade from which she and all her predecessors had taken their names "You think I got this for being a tree hugging pacifist?" he spoke without thinking "I think you got it cos your grandfather led the council" Lynx's eyes flickered to a wild silver light, but in the dark she doubted he'd see it even when she moved like a willow the wisp to his side "I'll say this once" she hissed "and I'll say it for the pure purpose of you being more or less alive to repeat it to your precious council" She rested a long ebony stake in the hollow of his throat watching the perspiration roll down mahogany flesh like a river "My grandfather cast a long shadow in blood and pain, and I walked there. Now he's dead" she leant in and placed her lips against his ear like a lover "But the shadow remains" Then she shifted the stake to the corner of his eye and licking a path up his ear popped the eyeball with the tip. That was when the screaming started, it didn't end until the sun became a slash of violent red on the horizon and only then because Lynx had gagged him so that she could change and make a phone call. She doubted he'd run, he couldn't. Before midnight she had broken his spine just below the waist, but only because he had kicked her, it had spoilt her fun.  
  
"Raine Galena" She named the council member who he had finally admitted to working for and listened to the answer "This is Lynx Redfern" she listened with a slight smile to the sudden hushed silence "No you don't have to leave the planet or suicide, your safe if you do me a favour" she listened to the woman's babbling thanks and cut them off "Come to the desert ambush site and pick up your protégé, he has something to tell you" she considered for a moment "Then I think it would be best to kill him" she listened for a moment more "No its not necessary" she paused "But it would be a kindness" then she put down the phone and walked back to him "Stay alive" he looked at her with eyes that in the daylight were brown and terrified but held a spark of defiance, Lynx smiled and at that moment she was the true reflection of her blade dark and brooding but filled with an unearthly power "Or I'll come for you beyond the grave, believe I can do it?" he nodded with his eyes and she smiled, like her mouth had been pulled up at the corners with wires "Good" then she turned and left him alone on the sand revving her car away into the blistering desert morning while he prayed to all the gods he had ever believed in that he wouldn't die yet, he had to give her message and warn them all what a monster Hunter Redfern had created; the whole Night World should band together to destroy her.  
  
What he hadn't seen were the dark shadows momentarily shown in Lynx's eyes before she had thrust them away with a sheer effort of willpower, after the twisted pleasure torture gave the part of her that was Hunter Redfern's creation had drained away. Monster, yes perhaps, Lynx thought as she caught his thought as she drove away. And know like Frankenstein's beast I drive towards my confrontation in the snowy wastes. Her smile was ironic the woman from beneath the stars was gone as if she had never existed as she flipped on the radio perhaps to drown the screams that never completely left her.  
  
'..Life is a lesson,  
you learn it when your through.  
And I know why you wanna hate me  
Cos hate is all the world has even seen lately..'  
  
And that she thought as she tapped the wheel with long fingers eyes on the road, is the truest sentiment I've ever heard.   



	8. Part 8

Green fields out of a desert land, it was slightly poetic this fugitive town, it was like hell though Lynx thought to herself. Once you were in you never left, except for Assassins like herself who slipped in and out like shadows of the world outside cutting briefly to the heart and then gone like pieces of the night they were. She was thinking this when the phone rang and she frowned, she wasn't expecting a call, but she picked up anyway. "Redfern" a slightly quirked smile crooked her lips "Hello Theirry how can I help you?" her eyes flared briefly and then relaxed back to their normal melting gold "The councils OUTRAGED you say" she put emphasis on outraged in deep sarcasm but her voice chilled down after that. "I'm the Night Blade Theirry, if they send someone to kill me they shouldn't expect his passing to be painless" she listened for a moment more and then laughed, it wasn't a sound of amusement though "Perhaps I am, maybe they're all right, I don't know myself, ask Hunter" and with that she put down the phone but her eyes were thoughtful as she stared at it and then looked out over Ryars Valley "If I'm Insane, I'll find out within the next few days, either that or this job will finally send me over the edge" she shook her head and slipped on a pair of shades before sliding the car into gear and driving down a winding lane; she was stuck slightly behind a stopped bus. She watched three people get off, by the looks of them a made vampire a shifter who had seen better days and a Lamia, but she had learnt not to take appearances for granted so didn't overtake the cumbersome human driven vehicle she exhibited endless patience and finally drew up outside of a motel, it wasn't exactly in the town but it was close enough for comfort and would give her a base of operations; and that was all she needed.  
  
She slid into the reception area half an hour later dressed in clothes she had accepted reluctantly as a birthday present from her sister Andromeda last year. She didn't understand her older sister, no contact for eighteen years and then a visit on her nineteenth birthday bearing gifts. But it was the Redfern way, after all when you have eternity birthdays aren't a big deal. The thigh high soft leather boots had been designed with the Night Worlds premier assassin in mind, they had so many straps a whole arsenal could be carried comfortably and six throwing knives were concealed in the folded cuffs. At the moment she only carried those knives and two long stilettos which held together the tumbled mass of her hair, free now, it touched her waist in a blood red curling wave. The rest of the clothes had a simple elegance which marked them as both designer and crushingly expensive; but that's what happens when your sisters cover job is as a supermodel. The skirt brushed the tops of the boots a dark purple suede belted with beaten silver links which came apart into a set of wickedly sharp shurikens, she'd had to be careful putting that on. Then the camisole which was a real piece of artwork, it was smoke tree coloured, a sort of purplish black and there in winking silver threads was the constellation of the twins, the mandarin collar was held at the throat with a diamond pin which could be used as a bug and then the sleeves left her arms bare to work. It was a beautiful ensemble but Lynx only used it to impress people she didn't like, she had long since stopped regarding herself as a desirable woman, she knew herself.  
  
The motel receptionist was human, which always made things easier. Human and male; which really made things a doddle, she simply placed hip against the counter and smiled. Bingo. Redfern ten million, rest of the universe nil. He had seen her and perhaps more importantly he had seen her car, she was money and as far as she knew that was all most humans were interested in; that and sex. Of course most Night Worlders were interested in both of those things, those not completely obsessed with the Millennium problem, countdown six months and however many days. She took the best suite of rooms in the place and paid for a weeks advance rent, in cash. That guaranteed her her privacy and anonymity, she would sign no registers and when she left a swift mind wipe would ensure she had never existed, but by then the cash would be gone so her tracks were already covered.   
  
Ugh, she had always hated motels and now she remembered why. Tacky black polyester sheets on a huge round bed black damask curtains at a window with a view of the parking lot. But there was a desk, chair and electricity supply, probably meant to be for the tacky lamp on the desk but she plugged in her mobile phone, paid for until the predicted end of the world, and then plugged her laptop into the phones specially installed jack. She had web access up and running within seconds, three new emails; eyebrows rose, one from her brother and two from prospective clients, neither of which offered more than self-satisfied sums for her work. She sent back insulting replies along with one of her favourite viruses. She looked at her brothers mail then.  
Lynx,  
Heard about your latest atrocity during council, keep safe try not to get killed, see you at Samhaine? ----- Aspen  
She smiled briefly, it was an odd gesture not like any of her other smiles, Aspen was an oddity for a Redfern, he believed in keeping in touch and had a sense of humour; her smile was saddened as she replied.  
Aspen,  
Never mind me I'm a match for them, can't say about Samhaine if I'm alive I'll make it if not then I won't.----Lynx  
  
Caring heart my brother, not like the rest of us she thought to herself; she shook of the odd sentimentalism and went straight to her supplier. She hadn't anticipated being on the job again this soon, let alone in somewhere like Ryars. What would she need? She placed a direct delivery to her car boot of twelve new throwing knives six wood six iron. Then she skipped off to nightworld.com, logged into the members only area and selected charms, she wanted one of invisibility and three to ward off lightning then she made access to circle midnight and ordered a necromancers stone. She gave a extra payment and knew from experience that everything would be in the boot of her car tomorrow morning, that sort of priority had been worth having her entire car overhauled to remove all the hex's and listening spells that had been put in as well as the delivery box.  
  
"Room Service" Lynx smiled, of course there were advantages to living in a motel she stood and opened the door, human and male, these places were nothing if not comfortingly predictable. She ushered him in with the trolley on which was a large slice of chocolate fudge gateaux an empty red wine glass. Ten minutes later he left with a five dollar tip and very little memory of the rooms occupant. The wine glass and Lynx were full and with that she began to demolish the gateaux, chocolate was something she was fond of, chocolate and vanilla milkshakes. She sipped down the wine glass before stripping down to sleep leaving on only her bra, knickers and several knives. She slept bathed in moonlight on top of the covers the Night Blade glimmering fitfully on the bed beside her hilt on the pillows like a lover.  
  
  



	9. Part 9

The moment the arrivals alarm went off on her laptop she snapped awake heir triggered, most especially here she looked at the full length mirror on the wall, no vampire showed. She gently slipped the black iris ring off of her right ring finger and her reflection re-appeared. Lynx studied herself critically she was slender as a willow switch, her ribs were countable but the rest of her body was perfectly acceptable. Then her fingers slid up to her throat touching what was usually hidden by her high collars or on the rare occasions she went out, by a thick velvet choker. The mark of her trust, the very last time she had trusted and the first and last time as an adult she had wept in bitter pain.   
  
She remembered even now, aged seventeen Night Blade marked even then weeping bitterly in Ash's arms while her heart broke and letting the black Blade which she had rejected fiercely up until then ease her hurts with a numbing chill. She had frightened both Ash and Theirry that day. Staggering into the Vegas mansion paler than even her red hair made her naturally and with a black fatigue bandage wrapped around her neck; then passing out at Ash's feet. They had asked blessedly few questions merely caring for her in a way few others would have done, even her grandfather. No he wouldn't have cared for her and eased her hurts he would have beaten her for foolish incompetence.  
  
She looked into her own eyes in the silvered glass and saw only a black void there, broken trust and broken bonds. Sometimes broken bones and a teenager who bore no resemblance to the Lynx who looked in now, her broken heart. Soulsick Aradia had called her 'seeing' her once Lynx had shaken her head at the maiden who was the same age as her born but a few weeks earlier and had whispered into her ear. The maiden had paled and the fingers that had traced Lynx's face had shaken but she never repeated the word Lynx had changed for her, but she remembered, she had said, not Soulsick but Soulless. She wondered now seeing her own eyes if that had been more than a publicity gimmick, whether it had been a forewarning, at eighteen, of the truth.  
  
Lynx broke her own gaze and restored the charmed ring to her finger, a birthday gift from her mother when she had been only a child; before her grandfather had taken her. She shook off her darkly morbid thoughts and began her daily exercise routine, even placing a dart board up on the wall and throwing knives, not only from standing, from crouching lying on the floor curled in a ball, standing on one hand and in the middle of several gymnastic moves. If she didn't manage to hit the bullseye then that position or set of movements would be repeated again and again until they were correct. Almost an hour later she stripped off her sweat sodden underwear and walked naked but for her knife sheaths to the shower there she stripped even those off but not before trapping the doorway and ventilation shaft and taking a Night knife into the cubicle with her.  
  
The water beat down upon her aching muscles and she washed and braided her hair but she didn't relax, in her profession to relax was to die, and hadn't she seen it happen? Only sheer bloody-mindedness on the part of her grandfather had kept her from being in the Dark kingdom with him when he had gotten himself fried by blue fire. She hadn't mourned. Ash had told her later it was pure Redfern good luck, she had looked at him for a moment and then reminded him that Hunter had been a Redfern. She didn't believe in luck, only skill and hard work, relying on luck got you killed. She was doing it again, this job seemed to have riled all her nihilistic instincts.  
  
With that she went out through the reception to her car, stopping to dress first of course; simple black jeans and a purple shirt. She opened the trunk and found inside her supplies plus two things she hadn't ordered which brought a frown to her face. One was a note the other a package, she unfolded the note holding it at least a meter from her face and holding her breath as a precaution but the handwriting was familiar. Theirry.  
Lynx  
The order is paid for, Ash sends something for you, good luck.  
Theirry.  
  
She rolled her eyes, she swore he thought he was her father, she knew that was impossible, he was a made vampire and what ever happened with the old powers made vampires didn't have Lamia children. She pocketed her order and took the package gingerly in one hand shutting the boot with the other. She half walked half ran up the stairs and then placed the simple newspaper wrapped square box on the floor and crouched down next to it and using the tip of her knife slit it open out of it fell a slip of paper and a beautiful black amethyst knife it was one of the most perfect pieces of weaponry she had ever seen, the hilt looked to be gold wrapped and there was a beautiful star shaped flaw mid way down the blade. She hefted it and the balance sang. She opened the note and there in Ash's beautiful flowing handwriting was a brief yet poignant salutation   
Take care, here's the defence you would never let me provide, come home safe.  
Ash  
  
Lynx smiled that sad unique smile, Ash was telling her in his own way to come back heart whole. Why so many people adopted her she had no idea but with Ash she could understand, he had seen Hunter's school with his own eyes although not for as long as her; they had sworn blood brotherhood aged nine three weeks later Ash had been removed from the school by his mother and Lynx had been left alone. Her own training had progressed at much harder pace for another six years.  
  
It was late in the day when she finally made some practice movements with the amethyst blade, she finished the dancing motions with a stab directly into one of the cheap polyester pillows. It burst into flame. Lynx stared at the burning pillow for a moment before extinguishing it with the carafe of water on the bedside cabinet. "Witch blade" she murmured "Oh Ash what did you do to get this" it wasn't a question more a statement and touching her voice was a slight edge of awe. Then she saw the Night Blade pulsing with a life of its own, still on the bed and she smiled, finally she had a chance against her soulmate. And with that heartening thought she went to the window to watch the stars come out.   
  



	10. Part 10

She was here he knew it almost as much as he knew that he was still alive and breathing after more years than he cared to count. Lynx Redfern was in Ryars valley. He sighed, now she was probably going to come for him. Uncannily like his soulmate Bran FallenStar turned to his mirror and looked himself in the eye.   
  
Eyes that were most often described as black looked back at him but in the depths there was green, like dark emeralds. His hair looked tousled probably from the fingers of the woman who still lay in his bed and it was in complete contrast to his eyes a very very pale silver blonde. He was built like a gymnast standing 6'2 inches tall and all lean muscle but he didn't see it, all he saw was the girl he had last known as Lynx Redfern, a fiery temper inside an icy self control, gold eyes flashing, red hair tumbling to her shoulders and scarred not only by the association with her grandfather but by the blade she carried by her side. He had tried to get her to put it aside and she had refused; then he had to attempt to kill her, he had never expected her to win past him and he had never expected her to damage her own reputation for infallibility by going to a Night lord for help; of course she hadn't. Now she was feared by most of the Night World, the highest paid assassin in Night World history and it was rumoured the most insane. He could only shoulder the responsibility, after all he had forged the blade.   
  
He could remember it even now, in the fires of hell as the world burned surrounded by a convocation of dragons. A lone human. He had been promised riches beyond his wildest dreams to come here and forge one blade out of the finest crystal that could be found in this world and the next; and of course he would die if he refused. So he had stood at a forge that flickered with an eerie green flame and had plied tools made of dragon fire on a piece of obsidian half a meter in length and seven centimetres in diameter and had tooled it into a blade. The hilt he had worked in molten silver to a twisted shape that had no real character until seven pieces of onyx were fitted to it then it gained an nasty slightly evil aura of old pain. The piece of artwork suddenly acquired a deadly purpose especially as one of the dragons snatched it from his hands and murmured a twisted incantation over it and it smouldered with an unholy light. Then came the most horrible part of it all, the part that had haunted his nightmares for years a tiny young witch woman, she couldn't have been more than fifteen was dragged in and held by two of the bigger dragon males and the sword was plunged into her heart and proceeded to drink her blood.   
  
It was only then that the first two draconian runes formed. The moment the sword was released it wavered for a moment and then disappeared. Like an idiot he had demanded to know what he had created that had to be cooled in innocent blood. Seven dragons had left at that point with some unspoken signal between them and the eighth had come to 'reward' him at that moment he almost welcomed the death he thought he was to receive. What he had been given was worse, immortality. Bran SunStar had been given a Dragons soul in payment for the evil he had wrought in the making of that blade; all of the power and none of the identification, no horns but he was cursed with the heaviness of his own conscience for nearly two hundred years. Then he had finally embraced the fact that there was nothing he could do about it and became Bran FallenStar.  
  
He smirked at himself in the mirror. What he didn't mention was his own cowardice, he always knew where the accursed blade was and the evil deeds that followed it, sometimes to the best of men. He could have destroyed it at times and his own pride in its workmanship and his fear at what its destruction would do to him always stopped him. The worst time had been in England over a thousand years ago when the blade had first driven Uther Pendragon to murder and adultery against one of his most loyal vassals and later his son to suspect the same of one of his best friends and had pushed the country into a war of unequalled proportions; he had been there with the seeress Morgaine Lafee to bury the king on the isle of apples and to throw the sword out over the lake. But it was not enough, it had gone to Hunter Redfern and he had put it to good use.   
  
Bran's next viewing of the blade had been seeing it put into use against four shifters in a dazzling display of swordwomanship, wielded by a young redhead with wild silver eyes that seemed to shift colour under his gaze. That had been his first sight of Lynx; the sword had worked a longer course, it had even been in the hands of one Adolph Hitler at one point a gift of appreciation. Hunter Redfern had plucked it out of the ruins of Berlin and had handed it to Lynx's predecessor, he had been quite capable of going without the blade for a mere five years.  
  
It was his problem, he should have destroyed it years ago. Now what would have to be done would weigh on his soul for the rest of eternity. A stirring on the bed behind him brought his mind back to the present and he turned to the night dark shifter on the bed and felt no stirrings of the lust that had brought him to his first long term relationship in over a hundred years, in the morning she would have to go. He had to think, and think fast.   
  



	11. Part 11

For watching the house for three days straight Lynx had learnt remarkably little about the reclusive witch occupant. She had gone out once a day always leaving by the front door always re entering the same way. From what she could see she was a harmless enough old woman; unless Theirry was killing off potential rivals for leadership after the millennium which was possible but a little part of her deep down would be a little disappointed if it were true. She shrugged off the uncommon burst of self pity and sank back into the shadows as one of the woman's visitors arrived carrying another of those curious little bundles but the cloth on this one slipped, revealing a thatch of baby blonde hair. Lynx went cold. Some things can horrify even an assassin and what her intuition told her was going on in that house was one of them.   
  
She had retreated from her perch and was on her knees in the grass near the house trying to plan what she intended to do, the assassination wouldn't take more than half an hour is she played it right it was the aftermath; she had counted nineteen babies in that house, one more and she would have the ritual number. No wonder Theirry hadn't wanted Daybreak anywhere near this house they would have been so concerned about the children that they wouldn't have been able to concentrate on the target. Lynx was different she could kill the woman if it meant killing every single one of those children first. She sounded like a monster she knew but her train of thought looked around and forward never back; if she saved every one of those children she might die in the attempt and then they could all starve to death. Or worse in saving the children the woman could escape and then Lynx doubted she would be there for the next twenty or the twenty after that. She shook her head, keep you mind on the job girl, she admonished herself, this is about money nothing else; remember what tenderness got you. And as her fingers fluttered to her throat her eyes flared to a savage silver and across town in the motel the Night Blade burst into an sinister green blaze.  
  
She was walking back to the motel from the edge of town when the college opened its doors for the end of the day and she paused to watch the human and inhuman flood break free of the chains of organised education. It had to be three quarters Night world, she was about to move off her interest only briefly entangled with the life she should have been part of when a small group on the tail end caught her eyes, or to tell the truth one boy. With night dark hair and just as she was about to turn away a freak ray of sunlight caught gold off of his eyes and she smiled sarcastically and whispered to the wind "Hello Cougar, do you remember me at all I wonder? Or did they arrange a mind wipe for you? Some nice false memories?" she ripped her gaze away feeling something dark uncoil within her, dark and unclean and for an assassin that was a statement. She ran the rest of the way to the motel; haunted and oddly jealous of the picture of her twin surrounded by laughing happy people. But the sentiment was gone by the time she reached her base.  
  
The first thing she had to do was make a phone call to Circle Daybreak, not to Theirry but to Ash, for the first time in her life to plead for a favour; the very thought made her feel dirty and useless but it had to be done there were some things not even the Night Blade could do alone and this was one of them. First however she had to do penance, it was a habit made for her by her Grandfather, she saw no reason not to keep it, it helped her concentrate. She pulled the cuff of her sleeve away from her wrist and slit it with the silver tip of her Night knife and then allowed five drops of rich red blood to drop onto the Night Blades blade. It flared oily green for a moment before returning to black but her runes on the blade remained a glowing gold and they would stay that way for over an hour yet. The thought of the blood made her hungry but it would have to wait.  
  
She crossed to the phone and stared at it for nearly ten minutes before she allowed herself to pick it up, then she swallowed her pride and dialled Ash's number from memory then she counted off the number of rings, one, three, five, seven "Hello? Ash Redfern Speaking." She took a deep breath and let it out on his name "Ash ?" there was a pause before his voice more uncertain than she had ever heard it came back "Lynx?" she sighed "Of course, who else?" she could almost hear his characteristic shrug "I didn't expect you to call" she shut her eyes and ground out "Neither did I" Ash remained silent and then murmured "What is it?" Lynx had bitten her lip so hard that blood was flowing freely "I" she stuttered "Lynx?" she screwed her eyes more tightly shut and said hoarsely "I need your help" there was dead silence and then Ash's voice came back "I'll be there tomorrow" then he put the phone down she gently replaced the mobile on the table and looked at it in wonder, no sarcasm, no comments, she wasn't all that sure if it had been Ash at all.  
  
***  
Ash stared at his bedside phone for almost ten minutes before he realised Mary was tugging at his arm wanting to know who had been on the phone "No one important" he tugged a black sweater on over his jeans and headed for the door when he heard her voice small and unsure of itself "If its no one important where are you going?" he shut his eyes "It's a Circle Daybreak thing Mare, you don't want to know, really!" She looked at him an uncommon piece of Night world wisdom in her normally human eyes "It's Lynx isn't it" he nodded reluctantly and to his surprise she smiled "If you two weren't cousins I'd be concerned" He flashed the Redfern grin and then sobered "No need, she would never sleep with anyone she needs" Mary Lynette blinked but Ash shook his head refusing comment then like a candle flame being snuffed he slipped out of the room leaving a confused Mary Lynette Carter looking at the door.   
  
  



	12. Part 12

She was dreaming, but not completely. It was like wandering the paths of her subconscious reviewing memories and mental tactics. Ash had taught her how this was done, but it was rare that she could reach the correct state of mind to manage it. She walked into the room she had labelled witches and looked about. Ah, there it was. Amberlee Choras her own clan had hired her to remove the more than slightly insane Child of Rainbows scion, they hadn't informed her that she was one of Circle Midnight's finest users of the new old powers; a war witch. But she had taken her out, then she had returned to her apartment to heal telling everyone she was going to the Bahamas for three weeks. As always it had been Ash who had kept her in blood. But it wasn't that that was important; it was the fact that a spell casting witch is vulnerable to thrown iron filings. She smiled and surfaced to the waking world.  
  
Ash Redfern, she would have to find a way to repay her cousin. She shouldn't let herself trust him but she had to admit to herself now that he was one of the two people on the plant she actually liked and perhaps in that little iron ball that she had seen in her mental walking she cared about him. She smiled, she had an idea of what to give him.   
  
Three knocks, then two, then three, then one she blinked once Circle Daybreak code. Then she shook her head Ash Redfern had arrived. She moved to the door like a shadow dressed completely in black her red hair damped down to burning embers and coiled into a braid and pinned to the back of her head; the white skin of her face darkened to a Latino olive with cosmetics. Ash blinked twice at her appearance and moved vampire quick and quiet into the room. "Its only mid day Lynx" she half smiled at him and he blinked she knew why there had been no sarcasm in that smile it was poignant and sweet. "What's gone wrong?" she shook her head and sat cross-legged on the floor and motioned for him to do the same. "Were allied for this time cousin, what's your price" she watched him blink his eyes were a sharp greenish grey, he was trying to evaluate her trying to read her expressionless professional face and tone. "No price Lynx, your finally letting me look after you" he grinned blonde hair flopping into his eyes "That's enough"  
  
Lynx was silent for three full minutes keeping her eyes on the floor pushing every unruly emotion back into the tiny iron ball in which they lived and then she met his eyes and hers were a soft clear gold that was rarely seen "My cousin, you have won more than you know" Ash looked puzzled at this unexpected and uncharacteristic tenderness "Have I?" "Oh, yes Ash" she shut her eyes for a moment "You have my affection" and her eyes hardened seeming to reflect aeons of despair "And you have my trust" She saw from his eyes that he knew what she meant and to her surprise he leant across the carpeting and hugged her tightly to his chest for a moment and then flashed his own version of the Redfern grin. "I love you too heart sister, now why am I here?" she flashed her normal deeply sarcastic smile her eyes returning to their usual dark hardness "Let me finish Ash" she walked over to her laptop and hit send on an email she had prepared when she first awoke this morning; Ash raised one quizzical eyebrow and she gave him a thumbs up. "And that secures your soulmate" Ash went pale "What have you done?!" she half smiled "Trust Ash, remember?" she saw that he wouldn't question her but his eyes were tortured, Lynx sighed "I have just issued a general warrant of protection, in the old style. Stating that if one Mary Lynette Carter is touched in any way without my express permission or hers that person will become subject to my swift vengeance." She looked into Ash's eyes "There is no price higher than an assassins life" He looked at her with something like wonder in his eyes "I used to think I was getting to know you but now, I don't think I ever will" shutters slammed down behind her eyes "Don't try to know me Ash, its not wise" he smile was slightly winsome "Just, appreciate me"   
  
It was his turn for silence now then he nodded at her and said in a mock pleading voice "The plan Lynx, please?" she smiled, fae and reckless "I don't have a plan, but I know what you have to do" Ash stared at her, "I thought that being a master assassin consisted of hours of convoluted planning and design" she looked at him for a moment before mimicking his shrug "Sometimes, but to be honest three times out of four its relying on instinct and knowing your target." Ash stared at her and then at the eerily glowing blade on the bed "And that?" she smiled but it was only half a smile "That is my child killer, my own personal curse." He looked at her "It was forged millennia ago Ash, by the dragons for revenge on their usurpers. It hungers for blood, more-so than any vampire." His eyes were full of horror but he stayed silent for in her eyes was a dark knowledge that was much older than anyone he knew except perhaps Theirry before Hannah's arrival and full of old blood and pain.   
  
Lynx turned away from the clarity of Ash's gaze and stared at the blade on the bed, what she had said about it was all of the truth; it haunted her thoughts and dreams with madness so much greater than hers could ever be. With feats of death, pain and seduction and what it had offered and given to those who wielded it, all it gave her was self control and in that she learnt its revenge bent soul. The soul that had been a fifteen year old girl long ago, there were no more spaces on the blade, she was the final holder and they would go down together in the proverbial blaze of glory. But they first had to find the man both of them so desperately wanted revenge upon; and then it would be over.  
  
  
  



	13. Part 13

Ash Redfern could say that he was scared utterly shitless and he would have been telling the absolute truth, and he was worried. Most people he admitted would be worried by the fact of going into a house where according to their source there was a homicidal witch woman, but to go in with only the instructions 'look after the children' well that was just a tad open plan. But that wasn't his major worry, his major worry was Lynx. She was, not herself in the most elemental fashion she had seemed slightly preoccupied all of this afternoon and asking her questions had either gotten slight mixed answers or a smile that had no sarcasm to it at all or a shake of the head; she was acting what his mother would have called fae, as if....  
  
Lynx snapped her head up as Ash walked over to her determination in eyes that were hunting silver. She had managed to keep him back from her all day while she prepared but it seemed he had either reached the end of his patience of had had some sort of brainwave "Lynx" he paused and then blurted out "Do you think your going to die tonight" she blinked, then she did it again and stared at him pulling up all the icy walls she had allowed to fall while her mind worked   
overdrive on a plan for two people instead of one where the second person had to come out alive.   
  
"What do you think Ash?" he stared at her "A moment ago I would have said you were counting on it" she sighed "I'm like this before every operation" she grinned wicked and feral "I'm usually alone" Ash continued to watch her even as her mind turned to the final stage of what had to be done "What's your main objective?" it was asked in such an offhand tone that she simply answered for the first time in a long while without thinking about it "To get in, kill Mademoiselle evil and get you out alive" then she spun around and her eyes were a furious blue "That's not fair!" it was such an out of character thing for Lynx to say that Ash merely laughed in delight and her sarcastic smile returned "Laugh Redfern, remember the old saying. Eat Drink and be merry" she turned towards the shower but looked back over her shoulder "For tonight we may die"  
  
Lynx watched Ash's face when she came out and was not disappointed "I thought you were dressed for business earlier" she shook her head "It would have been to easy to have been spotted, I almost forgot that in Ryars assassination is ignored almost universally" "Yes but to make it quite so obvious..." but his eyes laughed, she slipped her ring from her finger and took a look at herself in the mirror, with the half sarcastic thought of 'and this makes twice in two days' but she couldn't help liking what she saw.  
  
Looking from the feet up as most men tended to her boots were of flexible black calf high leather, they had no heels but the soles had been hardened. Not enough to walk over broken glass but enough for walking down the street not to hurt her. They were criss-crossed by fifteen straps running up the main part, each of the straps was buckled lightly with some sort of enchantment and holding knives of more descriptions than there were in the special edition of arms and armour. All of them Night world specialised. The folded tops of the boot held the earlier ordered throwing knives and led up to a pair of simple black cotton shorts they were of the variety that should have been drawstring and baggy but instead had been re tailored to fit the skin and were held in place by a wide leather belt. That belt had cost her a pretty penny, it fitted her waist like a glove and had her initials in silver and had two simple loops. Threaded through the left side was her ebony stake the right hand one was empty. Her camisole was leather, the same one she had worn to her meeting with Theirry. A large leather and silver choker was at her throat and mounted in that a necromancers stone. A Black star sapphire that, could, with very little effort on the part of the wielder; raise the dead. Her upper arms had two large leather straps around them in which were several tiny vials filled with what looked like dust; at the wrist were bracers wound around with silver iron and what appeared to be bast. Her face was scrubbed and clean, her hair, bar a few wisps, was contained in a tight braid which at its end about mid back length was fitted with an iron battle star.  
  
"Very nice" her mouth quirked at the corner and she lifted his amethyst blade from the desk and slid it into the top of her left boot then she lifted the Night Blade and it flared with wicked green light. "Angel of Death" it was a murmur but his eyes reflected something very dark and she half smiled at the typical elusiveness of Redfern prophecy. *I'll take that as a compliment* she watched his eyes turn a smoky grey as she switched communication to telepathy *From here on in* she explained *No noise until the fat lady sings* he grinned suddenly *That's an odd sentiment* she shook her head *Nah, think of death as a fat lady, it takes a lot of the edge off of it* Ash looked at her his eyes had lightened which had been the whole point of the conversation; then she moved off pausing by the door to pull on a full length leather duster jacket. *You wear a lot of leather* she looked back at him her eyes distant and silvering rapidly *The blood comes off easily* she looked him up and down taking in his faded black jeans and black shirt *Weapons?* he flashed fangs and allowed a pair of wrist sheaths to show and she nodded *You'll do* then she strode out of the room making sure her ring was securely on her finger and the charms she had ordered were in the jacket pocket.   
  
*Do you think we're going to die?* they were halfway to the house and stars were beginning to silver the sky *No, your not* *That wasn't my question* she didn't stop walking forward but her answer floated back over her mental shoulder as they continued on. *I know, but that's all I can guarantee*  
  
  
  
  



	14. Part 14

Yes tonight was the ritual she was sure of it, the house was completely dark but her mind, hyper alert as it was, told her one woman and twenty unformed minds were in the house. She turned to Ash *Stay behind me for as long as possible* he shrugged but a battle light was in his eyes and she shook her head *Throw away all that Circle Daybreak zeal, think back to your years of assassinations, you're my secondary you need to do what I tell you!* he nodded and his eyes shifted from bright silver to a kind of pewter, her own remained a fixed gold.   
  
Lynx gently removed one of the knives from her boot and slipped it under the window latch, when the lock had undone she turned back to Ash and handed him two carved pieces of metal *Charms, one is for invisibility the other lightning* she watched his face as he accepted them *I'll be able to see you until we enter the house* Ash looked at her despite the hunting light in his eyes there was concern in his face and she read it *I don't need charms Ash, I'm going in to kill her* *Couldn't you just stab her from behind under and invisibility ward?* she shook her head sarcastically amused *No Ash, that's not the way I play the game* he looked at he for a moment *Your not as evil as you make out* she raised an eyebrow at that but answered just before she slipped into the house through the now open window *No Ash, I'm worse, what's more terrifying seeing your death laughing down at you or merely feeling it?* and then she was gone.   
  
She could feel Ash's confusion but it was no longer important. Nothing was now except her target. This was why she was not only highly regarded amongst paying customers but amongst her peers too, single minded concentration. The Night Blade hadn't been sheathed, it was a glowing part of her body now and if anyone else had been with her as she stalked at a peculiar half run down the corridor they almost would have heard it breathing in time with her. Then she was in the doorway and crouched there, she felt a rush of wind move past her and suspected it was Ash going to the line of children on the floor; three already lay on the stone altar their tiny throats ripped out and their blood gathered in an onyx bowl. And there in the middle of the room stood the woman she had been sent to kill, one of the highest prices in the Night world and one of Lynx's mothers best friends Digitalis Darlde. She was completely nude and at thirty nine it should have been a frightening prospect to any woman, but she was a witch and she knew how to use her powers. She was stunningly beautiful, and as her full name stated a dark childe indeed.   
  
Long black hair streaked with midnight blue tumbled in waves to mid thigh and huge black eyes which she supposed could have been dark blue but the pupil was so distended it was unknowable. Her body would have been perfect if not for the terrible scars that covered her torso; her sources said they were from a mad axe attack. And the blood of course. Lynx stepped out of the doorway and into the flickering candle light just as Digitalis turned to take the next child. "Hello Digitalis" it was no more than a slight whisper but the other woman froze as if she had sounded the heavenly clarion call. Then she turned back, there was little recognition in her eyes but then there was little of anything; she had obviously tired of running along the thin line between sanity and madness and had leapt straight in at the deep end.  
  
"What do you want, little vampire?" her voice was a pure melodic soprano but had little effect on Lynx, she was as well trained in music as her Grandfather could have made her and she recognised the tell tale signs of a good vocal coach. She merely shrugged her shoulders and placing its tip on the floor leant on her blade. "Just to watch, after all it isn't everyday we 'little vampires' get to see a new Lamia line created" it had been uttered in tone of such crushing sarcasm Lynx was sure she would be attacked but the woman merely smiled and looked at her and murmured "Liar" she wasn't taken aback, she had seen this before, someone so insane they looked and acted as if they were lucidly sane. Her Grandfather had been one and her mother, she expected that eventually she would be one too. So Lynx nodded instead "I'm afraid that's true" Digitalis nodded and made a patient hand motion as if to say 'go right ahead then' "You see I've come to kill you"  
  
There was a pause while the witch simply stared at he and then she laughed "You can't kill me" Lynx raised her eyebrow "No?" then she considered for a moment "Well I suppose you could kill me instead, but I must warn you that I'd fight back" the woman looked at her with black eyes and then shifted her eyes to her blade and a momentary flash of lucidity lit them "Lynx Redfern? Night Blade" Lynx's eyes shifted to a bright harsh silver "Bingo" "I knew your mother, before she died" Lynx inclined her head but her eyes never left the insane witch. "Yet you'd still murder me in cold blood?" Lynx shook her head but there was mercy in her eyes or softening to her posture "No, I'd assassinate you, that's my job, murder is such a messy word."  
  
Lynx thought she might have finally pushed the woman over the edge but she still hung back so with a sigh she threw an iron knife at her. It bounced. Digitalis smiled evilly and seemed slightly surprised when Lynx returned the gesture and then flung one of the small vials at her. When the shield disputed in a shower of black sparks the witch started to look just a little panicked and turning grabbed one of the children; Lynx's mental shoulders slumped, oh Ash. "You wouldn't stab me through a baby would you?" A moment later the knife Lynx had kept hidden from everyone down the centre of her back was standing just above the babies shoulder and buried in the mad witches heart. As she toppled backwards the last words she heard were in Lynx's mocking tone "Bet, you, didn't know I was a good shot"   
  
Ash re materialised looking sheepish but Lynx wasn't concerned with him she was concerned with the young girl of about seven standing in the doorway; by the angle she could see Ash but not her. "What did you do to my mother?" Ash didn't move but his mental plea for instruction was vast, she didn't give any. So he knelt to be on the child's level and tried to reassure her. Lynx continued to watch quiet and still until the child finally turned in her direction. Then she walked forward the Night blade in her hand and calmly ran her through.  
  
The room was now, she thought absently, completely covered in blood. "Why Lynx" she turned back to Ash for a moment she had forgotten he was there "Did you notice, Ash, that the child didn't seem bothered by any of this?" "She asked..." "What did we do to her mother, not why did we kill her mother not why were we here not even why the room was covered in blood" she waited for this to sink in then she flicked the child over with the toe of her boot. There clasped in a tiny white hand was a long wooden dagger. Ash looked at it and Lynx in horror "Remember where we are Ash, here and in other renegade towns, survival is everything"   
  
Then she ushered him out of the room and out into the street where she handed him a mobile phone "Call Theirry, tell him that Circle Daybreak adoptions need to find homes for seventeen children, two third's of which are probably Night world." She paused for a moment tucking the Night Blade into her belt loop "Then I want you to go home" he looked at her eyes disturbed "What will you do?" she smiled but her eyes blazed like all the fires of hell had been lit there "I'll collect my reward" Ash looked at her for a moment more and then with a graceful shrug began to punch buttons into the phone. He felt a whisper of lips over his skin as Lynx kissed his cheek and then she turned away and disappeared into the night. She doubted he'd leave but he'd stay out of her way and that was all she needed.   
  
  
  



	15. Part 15

As the dawn light crept under the heavy curtains Lynx's eyes flickered open, her dreams had been haunting and filled with half formed regrets but she refused to think on them, today she began the harder part of her mission here. The kill had been easy for her, but for a Daybreaker it would have been close to impossible, all those children, and to make a perfect heart shot she had had to not care about hitting the child. Which had been easy, now it was time to bank her payment.   
  
She allowed herself to remember the first time she had met her soulmate. She'd been on the job, when wasn't she? In combat with four shifters who's mother she had been paid to kill. It was a council job so she wanted them out of the way, the extra money for their scalps would have been nice, at the time she didn't have the bank balance she had now a mere two years later. When she'd looked up from tagging and bagging them he had been standing there staring not at her but at the Night Blade, sheathless as always since the man who was to have been her balance had died during their training. She had gone instantly on the defensive and he had smiled.  
  
She shook off her memories and went to shower, she walked out wrapped lightly in a towel to find the message light on her computer flashing. There was one new email labelled Theirry Descoudres Office but to her surprise it wasn't from Theirry it was from Hannah, Theirrys teenage soulmate.   
Lynx  
Everyone here is worried about Ash, and Theirry is worried for you, please send a message or come back soon -----Hannah  
  
She continued to read it over and over again before she formulated a reply.  
Hannah  
I have told Ash to leave, if he chooses otherwise upon his head be it, other than this I have nothing to say. You are not my client and hence are owed no report save that one Digitalis Darlde is deceased-----Lynx Redfern  
  
With that she lay back on the bed, this assassination would take planning she placed one hand on the Night Blade which sometimes aided her concentration. It flared into black flame, a colour it had never produced before and a young woman materialised. Brown hair curled down to the floor and all she wore was a thin white shift but there was knowledge in her eyes which held the same dark gold hue as Lynx's. She was no threat in the material sense though, Lynx could see right through her, literally.   
  
"Hello Lynx Redfern" She nodded slowly her eyes alert "I wont harm you, I couldn't, I need you" Lynx had to admit confusion so she made a slight face "Don't you know me?" She stared hard but it was almost beyond her until she noticed the blood on the shift and the girls age "You're the Night Blade" The ghost smiled but her eyes flashed with red hot rage "I wasn't always" Lynx bowed her head in tune completely with the girl before her "I tried to write about you once, I see you all the time" the girl smiled and was momentarily beautiful "I remember, 'sacrificed for ambition, cursed for greed' it was good" Lynx smiled "Who'd believe that the Night blade writes music?" the girl smiled "I would, but then you and I are more alike than any people I've ever met" Lynx stayed silent and watched "But right now we need each other if Bran SunStar is to pay for his treacherous soul" "He isn't called that anymore, he's Bran FallenStar, and you never told me how you met" The girl who was now a sword looked at her for a moment and then nodded "Hear my story then Lynx Redfern, and see what it says even to your iron heart"  
  
"I was born at the end of the first age, when dragons ruled under the first house which was Drache then as it is now. My name was Ruby Harman, I was just beginning to learn my powers. They had come to me at puberty age thirteen, I was engaged" the ghost smiled ruefully "When my beloved said he was going to meet me just outside the bounds of the camp that night I was ecstatic, I ran out after supper to be there waiting for him when he arrived" her face was saddened "I never knew whether he arrived or not, I was taken from there by a dragon" Lynx had to interrupt at this point "Didn't you resist?" Ruby smiled but it was sad "How could I? I was fifteen and only slightly trained, I'd never used a knife in my life not even to skin a rabbit"   
  
"So what happened next?" she didn't sound eager but there was a slight edge to her tone that spoke of impatience, Ruby glanced at her once but continued "When we finally arrived there were two other dragons waiting to take me and he was standing there, staring at the sword. Then they plunged it into my heart and I knew no more until I touched the hand of my first wielder."   
  
Lynx sat for a moment and then nodded "I see your need for revenge, I share it" Ruby inclined her head "I know, we are aligned but we can be further made close, we can be conjoined" Lynx studied the eager shade and shook her head "Not now" Ruby smiled "But before you kill him, before we are freed to find our own peace" It was the first time either of them had mentioned what they believed would happen to them next but there was no fear in either set of eyes in Ruby's there was something like anticipation while in Lynx's there was only a deep abiding sense of relief.   
  



	16. Part 16

He dreamed for the first time in almost a month of Lynx Redfern, and the sword which had haunted him since it had been forged all that time ago. Lynx had haunted him before but the sword had never been with her, however much his subconscious hated him it had never put the two 'women' in his life together in one dream. Until now. They were so close together that they looked like one twisted artefact a dark melding of metal and flesh. But they weren't one yet. Then they turned to look at him and he flinched at the lifeless golden eyes; but she wasn't looking at him she was looking through him. It was the young woman who stepped away from her who was looking at him.  
  
She was almost recognisable something in his subconscious recognised her but his dreaming mind was struggling. "Do you like our creation FallenStar" he saw gleaming golden eyes in a fifteen year old face and his sleeping mind catapulted him awake. "That has to be impossible" the image remained imprinted on his eyes though and he climbed out of bed pulling on a pair of boxer shorts before walking into his study. There was a large easel bearing a half finished commission of one of the more prominent citizens of Ryars valley but next to it was a smaller one on which rested a half completed portrait. It was Lynx, but she wouldn't know herself if she saw it. The woman in the picture wore a yellow dress and a relaxed though thoughtful expression but the eyes held all the secrets of her world.  
  
It had been an obsession this painting, although he had tried many times to put it aside and work on something else. Obsession in a professional artist was a bad thing but it returned to haunt him. This was how his soulmate should look, this was HIS Lynx Redfern. He shook his head an oddly rueful smile on his face, this is what he'd like his Lynx Redfern to be but she never would be, even the suggestion of a dress would have her re planning her weaponry furiously. Most of all however he had always found this portrait helped him think, but not tonight. He took a piece of cartridge paper and sketched out the elfin little face that had partnered Lynx's and a chill of recognition slid down his spine "Oh, tortured spirit" and for a second his eyes flashed green fire human disgust displacing Draconian soul even now.   
  
Bran had a suspicion that his dream hadn't been completely a dream as his hand flew over the paper tracing the familiar curves of Lynx's face close, so close, to being entwined with the sword. Then he looked back at it and swore "Shit" and began pulling objects from his desk draws in an almost frantic search for something.  
  
***  
Lynx woke up her chest heaving from the remnants of an old nightmare to find Ash sitting on the edge of her bed her voice flew out "Duck!" he didn't question just threw himself on the floor and looked up to find her standing over him. "Clothes" he choked out "Clothes Lynx" she shrugged her shoulders and there was a knife at his throat "Why are you here cousin" Ash looked up into pitiless eyes and swallowed once "I want to help you" her brows rose but there was no real change of expression "I told you to go" he held her eyes as he answered "You need my help, remember" she shook her head "Not for this Ash, you don't have the lack of moral fibre that I do to manage this" he continued to stare at her "I went to the same school you did" Lynx's lip curled "For what, a whole three weeks?" Ash made no movement to correct her so she strode across the room and pulled a throwing knife out of the wall "Next time I won't warn you" he grinned taking this as acceptance of his presence standing before she turned around .  
  
In her hand was a long length of steel cored bast "So before I have to face the prospect of killing one of the three Redfern's I can appreciate, I'll truss you up like a turkey and send you back to Daybreak" Ash's eyes widened and he backed up a single step so that he was against the bedpost staring at her "You wouldn't" Her eyes were blank and dangerous "Oh yes, I would" and at that moment Ash wasn't sure whether she meant killing him or merely humiliating him. "I'll go" he stalked to the door and for the first time in well over two years looking like the Ash she had known in the trade turned back to her "But if you die, I'll never forgive you" Then he slammed out of the door and a few seconds later she heard his motorbike roar out of the motel parking lot.  
  
She was awake now, not a single vestige of sleep haunted her. Tomorrow. Today, she intended to move against her soulmate so she and the sword had to finish laying their cards on the table "Ruby?" the young woman's shade came from the sword in a flare of black fire "You called" Lynx looked at her, sizing her up as a potential opponent "Yes I did, I know what you get out of this demons bargain were making but what do I get?" the ghost looked at her for a moment taken aback and then smiled "Simple, the Night Blade will be at full potential like I was at Texas"   
  
Lynx had to take a moment to work out Ruby's split personality but the reference to Texas took no time at all. Three separate bidders bid for her to take the same job, like so all good business women she took all three contracts for absurd amounts of money. The whole thing had been a set up, they had meant her to die, and at sixteen she hadn't been ready to die. So what the bidders had meant to be a final blow out for the Night Blade had turned into a bloodbath, The Night Blade itself had taken a hand after the first six were dead and Lynx's blood was running over the hilt.   
  
Backlash, the place had filled with spinning shards of, well everything, for a second and then the sword had glowed with caustic black flames which hurt the eyes and by the sound of screaming they burned into cuts like vinegar and salt. She was to learn later that the cuts never healed. Lynx's smile turned feral even now in the present at the memory "Done" Ruby's shade smiled almost a mirror of Lynx, bloodlust and terror waiting to happen; as with a shake of her hair Lynx ran her hands along the blade until blood flowed and Ruby's chanting filled the air.   
  



	17. Part 17

Detached and whole all at once, it was almost like the soulmate connection that slight feeling of invasion followed by oneness, but it wasn't a complete oneness and it hurt. Lynx opened her eyes the Night Blade was in her hand and the black flames should have been scorching her. They had last time. But now they felt like a tongue against her hand. The detachedness had come almost as soon as her consciousness had returned as if the world couldn't quite touch her. Them. Ruby was there at the back of her mind like her conscience it was like balancing between insanity and pain on a greased wire.  
  
She finally moved over to the mirror, was the change in her noticeable? She had to know. Oh yes it was, if only to her. Her competence remained the same it showed in her stance, her hair still shone dark blood red free now and curling in tangles but her eyes; oh yea gods and little fishes her eyes no longer shone golden ice, they carried all the fires of hell. Lynx hardly felt her knees give way *What have you done?* *Done?* Ruby's mental voice was impartial as she stared at Lynx out of Lynx's eyes. *I've done what we both want, give me control* Lynx submitted warily to the dead witch and felt as if she had become even more disconnected as a black fireball danced into existence on the tips of her fingers.   
  
She slipped back into her space at the pilots seat and the fire disappeared. "What have you done" the question was whispered this time but it gave no appearance of insanity, Lynx continued to stare into the mirror robbed of her usual composure by shock. *You were bonded to the blade, all I've done is allowed us both a little more equality in this partnership* Assassins ice cascaded down Lynx's spine "You mean we have one soul?" her own head shook *No, we have one body. Try and let go of the sword* Lynx bit her lip and uncurled her fingers.  
  
Pain. It rocked her world, blood boiled and her heart threatened to burst she was being ripped apart inside until self preservation fisted her hand around the swords hilt again. Peace reigned in the motel room all was quiet except for the ragged gasp of Lynx's breathing. *One soul* she pulled herself to her feet wiping blood from the corners of her nose and mouth. And stared at the raging golden fires that were now her eyes "Till death us do part" it should have been funny but there was only antipathetic loathing in her tone; but Ruby still laughed. *Exactly, we are more wed than any puny mortal ceremony could make us there can be no betrayal in this*  
  
There it was set out in those seven words. There can be no betrayal in this. It told her why she had literally bargained with her demons and sold her soul. She licked her lips and a familiar silver sheen appeared in her eyes, Ruby's presence retreated. She had the gist of it now, in acceptance she gained control. She would take him tonight, she had almost an hour to kill before she had to prepare and had to leave time to remember the final time she had seen him.   
  
She had been little more than a child in the affairs of the heart, not in sex she had been using that as part of her arsenal since she had turned sixteen. Love however was a totally different ball game. It was the last day she could afford to spend playing hooky before her Grandfather came looking for her, she had to see Bran and tell him that there would be no more meetings for a while. Soulmate principle or no he wasn't a Lamia and he wasn't going to let himself be council controlled so her Grandfather wouldn't like him.   
  
She had dressed easily in white cotton shorts and a black halter top and her usual sarcastic smile was playing around her mouth. Her hair was loose concealing the only weapon she ever wore to their meetings, the Night Blade strapped by two leather thongs to her back and belt. Lynx Redfern was learning, albeit slowly to trust.   
  
Then she had knocked on the door of the friends house he was using while he was holidaying there in Tampa. With a light hearted grin he had opened the door, as always his smile had stolen something from her. Poetically she had once assigned it a piece of her soul now she just suspected rampant lust. But even Ruby agreed now in her memories he was a fine figure of a man, the hair and eyes had flashed at her when they'd first met in the dark alley. She'd gone to knock him out, and had still been standing there when he came around wanting to see if slapping him had the same effect on her metabolism.   
  
She should have seen the blackness in the dark of his eyes that evening as he had asked her once again, nonsensically, to give up the blade she had won with sweat blood and tears. She refused. How could she do otherwise, even then the Night Blade had been a part of her soul, part of who she was. He had accepted with a shrug and had gone into the kitchen.   
  
After that her normal danger sense deserted her the next thing she knew was the feel of a bast garrotte around her throat. How she had pulled free was a mystery, how she had managed to get to Vegas from Florida wasn't. She had killed three witches to get to Aradia and had demanded to be sent to Theirry, The woman who was to become maiden in the next year had done as she was told. Which had been sensible of her. The rest was history, history and nightmare.  
  
To her surprise the moon was rising outside as she looked from the window. She wouldn't need much though. Herself, the Night Blade and the Witchblade Ash had given her. Ruby was overjoyed as Lynx pulled on her all black outfit that had been first worn to Theirry's what felt like only hours ago, but her mind told her it had been days. The Night Blade it seemed could be parted from her when both of them were in agreement, she unbuttoned the collar of her shirt to leave the white scar showing as a mark of pride; and pulled her braid up so that it coiled around her head and into that she inserted the Necromancers stone.   
  
She walked out unconcernedly through the reception area the Night Blade spreading black fire from her in a sort of halo. It seemed oddly suitable to her tonight for surely she if not Ruby would be sitting at Satan's right hand tonight for her misdeeds, as she strolled down the road towards Bran's home she abandoned all her usual constraints and smiled; and echoing in her head was Ruby's maniacal laughter.   
  
  



	18. Part 18

It had taken seemingly no time at all to gain the back of Bran's home, it wasn't even protected by the standard wards she had been expecting. She could have used the door but that seemed wrong to someone who'd been in her profession this long. So with a gentle sigh and an almost angelic look on her face she inserted her picks into the window latch.  
  
***  
  
From the quiet opening of his back window he had just run out of time, but hopefully not out of luck. Now all he had to do was keep his mind on the job in hand which should be easy considering it was going to save his life. But of course it wasn't, life was never that easy. He was filled with a sick yearning to see her again. He almost laughed at himself, because they would be doing their best to kill one another and he wanted to see her smile. Romantic rubbish.  
  
Lynx Redfern of course chose that minute to walk, or more properly stalk through the door into the study. Predator. His whole body screamed it at him, well most of his body. Other parts weren't afraid of her, and he cursed the fact that even out to murder him she was still intensely desirable. And how many men, he chided himself, have stood here and thought that while staring just before she killed them like a black widow spider.   
  
He had to look at her of course, if only in artistic curiosity to see if his painting did justice. She was much thinner than she had been, although not much taller, and her skin was paler. Red hair the colour of blood cascaded down her back, she wore some sort of stone in it that he should have recognised but didn't. She was dressed all in black as she had been the first time he saw her, but now it moulded to an adults figure like living shadows. The Night Blade in her hand shone with black fire like a beacon from hell, and finally he touched her eyes and saw....... Nothing. It was as if Lynx Redfern had disappeared and instead was possessed only by hatred and bloodlust. He shuddered reflexively and her stare found him.   
  
Sanity almost seemed to flood into her eyes until he was staring at silver golden mist hiding fire; her mouth had pursed into a little moue of concentration and then straightened out into an angelic smile that hit him right in the heart. Making beautiful a face that would normally fail to qualify as pretty. "Hello Bran" A sweeter richer alto voice than before ran fingers up his backbone but not an expression showed on his face. He'd spent much of the Regency period in England playing cards for vast sums of money, he had a poker face that the gods would have envied.   
  
He inclined his head slightly, a mockery of a bow "Hello Lynx, it's been a while" most novels would have said a long time but with their respective lifespan's it hadn't been long at all. Her eyes flashed for a moment to pure hell fire. "You must know why I'm here?" he looked at her for a moment eyes bleak. "I'd like to think its to turn in that cursed sword" she blinked at him the smile leaving her face, which he had to admit was better for his peace of mind. "We've had this conversation" her left hand reached up to touch her throat as if by reflex and he denied guilt any place in his heart. "So we did, I was hoping for some change in your answer" Lynx shook her head that saintly slightly fae expression returning to her face. "I can't do that Bran" and the flames on the Night Blade flared.  
  
She really is going to kill me. The thought hit him just as her eyes wavered into a deep golden brown that had never been Lynx's. He went cold. "I understand" and he did, for the first time in it's bloody history the blade had gained a host for its soul; and he had ignored the warning he had been given. "Do you? I wonder" The voice wasn't Lynx's either if he hadn't known her to the soul then he wouldn't have guessed but this was his soulmate, he knew. "I understand that I'm going to die for my transgressions" her head dipped in a gentle inclination still angelic but chillingly so, like deaths own angel. Then she lunged for him lightning fast and there was no more time to think.  
  
***  
  
Anguish wasn't a word to describe Lynx's reaction at seeing Bran's forest eyes watching her, face guarded and blank. He was still beautiful as ever, if a man can be said to be beautiful, and the soulmate connection tugged at her heart. The hair was longer but still a pure silver blonde, now however the weight of the ages he had lived through seemed to weigh down on him, she couldn't speak and so allowed Ruby to do so. She was still angry, especially in the face of his complete indifference to the fact she wanted him dead; there was probably manipulation going on here but she couldn't care. Ice clear and cold flowed over her leaving her with only her target and then she went for him.  
  
***  
  
He had seen the change in her eyes and the dagger that appeared suddenly from her boot top, which he hadn't anticipated. He caught it at the edge of his shoulder and it burned. He stood for a millisecond in shock years of being damn near invincible took their toll before he shoved her backwards.   
  
Mistake. He had managed to catch her skin to skin and the soulmate connection, long held back, flared between them like a forest fire. It should have been a sparking feeling no more distracting than carpet burn, this wasn't, this was more like being hit by lightning. Now he stood facing Lynx Redfern mind to mind, but not together; between them stood the gulf of mistrust and mistaken actions. And she wasn't alone.  
  
Hundreds of years, thousands, and the girl who stood holding her hand was still more than familiar. She was smiling as if this was a high holiday picnic but it was Lynx who seemed almost shadowy next to her and he reached out, not a hand exactly, but more of emotional tendril and felt her recoil. ~Whats going on you two?~ that was a direct though sending from the girl petulance overlaid with confusion. He would have answered but Lynx was there first "This is the soulmate connection Ruby, be thankful you were never cursed with it" the fact that her voice sounded like speech told him that her mind was holding this joining not his. The girl however looked more than slightly put out, ~well stop it~ he couldn't help it he laughed. It rolled golden some of it even making it over the dived and lighting for a moment the dark crystals of her mind.  
  
When he managed to control himself he blurted out ~That's impossible~ and then he locked eyes with Lynx and there was something sad and terrible there that added a touch of red to the world around her even as the connection was breaking she murmured to his ears only "No, death holds the key" even as he felt himself falling.   
  
  



	19. Part 19

She hadn't wanted that, not in a millennia. The feeling of being complete had been overwhelming but she had managed to regain her emotional feet thanks to some stalling from Ruby. She suspected that the petulance hadn't been completely faked, but it had helped enormously. Now she stared at him from across the room, eyes flaring a crystalline blue that was only slightly marred with brown.  
  
"Are you happy now?" it wasn't quite her voice but there was less of Ruby in it than before. Bran looked slightly stunned and that gave her the edge as she moved forward her eyes narrow slits. Then to her surprise he looked her full in the face and nodded once "I'm satisfied" her mouth twisted into a sneer "I expect you are, never above using whores at your convenience" she watched the slight whiteness appear around his mouth, and jubilant as well as sorrowful; at this evidence of mortality and original sin in the man she had once seen as the light to her darkness she laughed.  
  
She was slightly startled at the sanity in the sound, her inner turmoil almost needed to hear a cracked cackle not her own low sarcastic chuckle. He acknowledged her with Shakespeare though, taunting her onwards "A hit, a very palpable hit" he mock bowed, snake quick, and backed into the study; reverting as he went to the tones of his younger years "But come lady, want's thee not thine revenge?" his eyes sparked emerald splinters as he disappeared.  
  
Lynx couldn't remember ever being driven so hard or torn so much by her own emotions, and Ruby was oddly silent; as if her glimpse of the soulmate bond had her thinking. The Night Blade however remained fired up to its most deadly and she went blade first through the door.  
  
He was standing by a half finished portrait of a young blonde woman who clutched a black dahlia in one hand and what appeared to be a wand in the other. He blocked the other portrait from view as she came unwaveringly on, he even stood still as she swung in a one handed graceful moment directly for his throat.  
  
Everything slowed, her revenge was on her and she felt sick. She would not, could not, turn aside now. And then out of what seemed like nowhere he swung up a beautiful crystal fencers epee set in gold. The opposite entirely of the Night Blade and he caught her mid swing "en guard, milady, the tables are turned I fear" she made no sound, noise showed thoughts early, like muscular movement. It diverted the brain from fighting, and it was a more balanced fight now. Bran had thousands of years life experience. She only had her skill. It was a big only.   
  
She saw within moments his problem, he wasn't used to the blade he wielded with lightning speed. She and the Night Blade moved as one being, of course they had the advantage of actually being one soul. But Lynx had never minded having the advantage it gave her an edge over her opponent and now she was fighting her own fight for the first time in years. She had a razor sharp edge.  
  
They could have been fighting in broad daylight for all the gloom bothered them, but he was tiring. That much the soulmate potential told her while she remained fresh. His breathing was beginning to give him away as much as the sweat stains on his clothes "Getting old mon ami?" she flashed him a pair of gleaming fangs as she leapt backwards over a chair to avoid a darting thrust. He laughed, for all as if they were a pair of friends sparring not a vampire assassin and an ancient dragon hell bent on destroying each other. "Oh yes" it was laughed out "I love you my lady" then his eyes flashed bleak.   
  
She was fighting without thought at all now, parrying and feinting in an almost mechanical rhythm "The why try to kill me? Not really a loving gesture" she forced him back into the chair she had leapt earlier "That" he made a gesture with his chin towards the Night Blade as he dodged her blow swiftly and lunged forward. "Why? You're the one who does harm, you made it" she whirled in a complete circle and went for a hamstring which he dodged with a light jump. "Bonding not as complete as you thought, hmm?" and at that moment Ruby as if acting under orders showed her the path that the Blade had wended to get to Hunters hands. Self service, greed and evil all to gain revenge.  
  
Shock should have given Bran the edge, but Lynx had been an assassin too long to be beaten by her own inadequacies. Even as he moved she performed a stop thrust and disarmed him. Then she wondered why she bothered, in this if nothing else she couldn't hide behind her own coolness, her own capacity for evil was great. But could she kill her own soulmate for a crime forced from him? She herself had done worse deeds than he, and for less of a reason.   
  
Bran had found a defence though while he groped for his weapon, and if she hadn't been dead to all external emotions now she would have laughed. For she could ask for no better proof that he loved her than the portrait he now used to defend himself. Ruby it seemed couldn't force her at the last; both were too tired, too war weary, and, most damningly, too alike to blame him for a crime that was theirs alone.  
  
As he regained his sword she looked at him with flat dull hazel eyes, and dropped the Night Blade at his feet even as the flames extinguished. She met shadowed emerald eyes with a bleakness that caught right to the soul and nodded even as his blade touched the hollow of her throat. She suspected, as the Night Blade could, his golden sword would have no trouble killing even a vampire. "Do it Bran, no remorse, no pity, do it as I would." And she held his eyes as the blade slipped home.   
  



	20. Part 20

Bran caught her body as it fell, eyes golden and lifeless as he had intended them to be. And a light smile gracing lips that at the last had shown a crushing sense of self defeat. He couldn't say it had been an execution. It had been more like suicide. His foot crunched on something even as he lifted her into his arms, and he watched dispassionately as the Night Blade crumbled; from the blade to the hilt. As if the very centuries of its existence had finally caught up with it and turned it to dust.   
  
He knew he should have been feeling triumph, relief, sorrow; anything but this complete void of emotion. He felt, he realised. As if his soul had been ripped out.  
  
Perhaps it had.  
  
Then he felt a hand upon his back and turned. Ruby stood there, flickering at the edges but there looking older and wiser than any fifteen year old had right to. "This is not the end Bran FallenStar" he stared at her, not in disbelief because he wasn't feeling anything but merely waiting his eyes were older than the stars. "No?" the normal unidentifiable lilt was gone from his voice, it was flat and tired "No, take her to the Dawn circle, bring her back Bran, teach her to live!" then the shade glanced over her shoulder as if in fear "I will pay for my own sins, why should she pay them with me?" Then she was gone.  
  
Bran looked down at the woman child in his arms and thought fast. How? Then he spied the black star that surmounted her flaming hair. Necromancers stone. It wasn't a thing Lynx would have worn, but Ruby had been a witch. Yes maybe just maybe..... His thoughts were doomed to interruption then as the door behind him crashed open.  
  
"Lynx?" there was a man in the doorway calling her name, even by the meagre starlight he could see hair the same shade as his own. He turned and the boy saw him, the hissed intake of breath was understandable, even laudable but he had the idea that he was going to launch himself at him and he really didn't want to drop Lynx. "Who are you?" the man blinked and then shook his head "Ash, Ash Redfern" his eyes were riveted on Lynx "How did you knock her out?" Bran shook his head, the boy was a vampire and he didn't know. "I didn't"   
  
Ash nodded something old and hard invading his muscles "I thought not, put her down please" Bran blinked twice, his emotions may have disappeared but he had thought his mind was working "Why?" he heard breath hiss back out through Ash's teeth showing absolute icy fury "I'd like to take her home for burial, I don't want her body damaged while I kill you"   
  
That definitely gave him pause for thought. "I can not allow that" he saw the flickering changes run through Ash's eyes until they were a deeper black than even his own. "And why not?" Bran considered thinking fast, how much to trust this boy. "There is still a chance to save her" he watched Ash shake his head "Even the ancient dragons couldn't bring back the dead" Bran laughed hollowly "No, they could only bind the living" he continued before Ash could move "But this isn't a Drake spell, and the hope is slim"   
  
Ash Redfern stepped forward so that they were close together, Bran was the taller of the two but Ash had ages in his eyes that matched the ones that had darkened Lynx's "What has to be done?"   
  
For a second he slumped in relief but then straightened cradling his soulmates cool form against his chest "I need to find the Dawn circle" Ash laughed, a choked sound "At the last she has to have Daybreak's help" Bran's eyes widened "Of course, how are we going to get there?" Ash looked at him "We'll take Lynx's Porsche to the nearest airport and then we'll borrow Theirry's jet to get to Vegas"  
  
He strode to the door without a single question but Ash touched his shoulder "Let me take her when we get there" their eyes came together like a blow "Why?" one side of Ash's mouth turned up in something that should have been a smile but wasn't "So that when Theirry sees her you can stop him killing you" Bran's eyebrows rose, not in surprise but in deep sarcasm "My lady was a busy girl I see" and before Ash could reply he was out of the door and striding down the street.  
  
***  
  
Redfern curiosity was warring with very real grief in Ash's mind as they drove at ridiculous speed out of Ryars valley and towards the airport. He felt guilty about being curious at all about the tall man who was so obviously FallenStar, but he was, and he had to break the terrifying stillness caused by the silent body that had once been his friend.   
  
"What are you?" it was only after he had asked the question that he felt slightly rude about asking it; it seemed however that FallenStar wasn't going to take offence. "Not who?" Ash shook his head "No, what, I know who you are, Lynx's soulmate FallenStar" the man nodded taking the corner out of Ryars at 130mph and Ash winced at the thought of the amount of Lynx's equipment they'd left behind, all the man had taken had been the computer and her throwing knives.  
  
"I'm Bran FallenStar" came his voice after a few seconds, Ash nodded and then waited "I was human once" that made him blink "You can't be a made vampire, no made could have beaten Lynx" a shudder ripped through the man next to him "No one beat Lynx Redfern, ever" it was a harsh whisper that made Ash sit up "You obviously did, or that" he jerked his chin in the direction of the back seat "Wouldn't be there"   
  
For a second he thought he was in trouble when every one of FallenStar's muscles went tense and then they slid back into slackness "I will not go into that, I will repeat the sorry scene only once." There was no temper not even irritation the flatness of his voice was disturbing, it gave Ash a terrifying look into what could happen if Mary Lynette continued to remain human and one day died. She wasn't an old soul and he had no idea whether she would return or not.  
  
He was startled out of his musings by FallenStar's voice "I was human" he turned and nodded showing that the man now had his attention "Then I was changed by a rather high ranking shifter" something approaching sarcastic humour twisted the corner of his mouth "Just before Dragon Death"   
  
Ash was slammed backwards into his seat as if FallenStar had just put on the brakes. He was sitting in a speeding Porsche with a Dragon. No wonder he had been able to take down Lynx he probably just fried her with black fire. But made, that had only been a rumour, he wondered how it was done but as they slammed into the airport at a steady 120 he decide against asking.  
  
***  
  
The journey to Vegas had been quiet, after they had used their combined brainpower to smuggle Lynx's body onto the plane. Ash would have quite easily distracted the attendant for the entire flight but FallenStar had given him that dead black stare and he had simply blocked them from her sight using what he jokingly called 'my Jedi mind tricks' Now they were five minutes from Theirry's mansion and Ash was worried, FallenStar wasn't what most people would call stable and he was taking him, a Dragon no less into the heart of Daybreak territory.  
  
In the end though he had no choice, if he hadn't told FallenStar then he suspected the Dragon would have simply left the cab and threatened the local shifter population into spitting out the facts. Ash Redfern had to admit defeat. Now however looking up at the black rose facade of Theirry's mansion he wondered exactly what they were going to do.   
  
***  
  
It probably would have comforted him to realise that Bran was having doubts of his own. Not about the validity of his mission, he couldn't bring himself to question that but as to the people he was bringing the question too. As the door opened his doubts multiplied at the sight of the young looking made vampire that answered it "Mister Redfern, a surprise, with guests?" Ash it appeared had not retained his earlier good mood "Cut the crap and let us in Nillson" he paused for a moment and then continued "And send a message to Theirry that I need to see him in the library a.s.a.p." then he pushed past and strode across the hall looking for all the world like the assassin he had once been.   
  
Bran followed carefully carrying Lynx, he still couldn't think of her as dead. Not when there was still a chance. He ignored the young vampires shocked face and followed Ash across a white tiled expanse of floor and through a beautiful antique wooden door. The artist in him took notes while the rest of him looked on uncaring.  
  
He and Ash sat on red leather reading chairs in that book lined room for what felt like an eternity. Original Shakespeare folios stared down at him alongside the latest Anne Rice novellas. In what seemed to be the fiction section. He had been about to stand to pace a little in old habit when the door swung inwards; it was not the Night Lord he had been expecting but a girl, perhaps a year or two younger than Lynx with a wine coloured birthmark and grey eyes nearly as old as his own.  
  
"Ash, what's.....?" her voice trailed off as she saw his soulmate lying on the sofa, she could have been sleeping if her chest had risen once in those silent seconds. "Oh great goddess, surely you could have spared him this" Bran was given no time to ask who or what when the vampire walked in.  
  
He screamed power, and not power through blood and destruction, power through sheer age. This he suspected was Theirry Descoudres "Spared me what love?" he looked at the girl who Bran was now certain was Hannah; if his recollection of their love story was correct, with a question in his eyes.   
  
She remained silent as if desperately searching for an answer, he felt an echo of pity for her and stood instantly drawing eyes if only for the uncanny similarity between the two men. Bran stood taller but carried none of Theirry's serenity for all he carried more years. Bran also possessed sharper more defined features. Perhaps there was no real similarity bar the lightness of their hair and darkness of eye, but shared experiences mark just as deeply as genetic difference.   
  
"Bran FallenStar I presume?" the old Bran would have laughed now he merely inclined his head in an uncanny echo of his soulmate, equal to equal "Theirry Descoudres, I am afraid I come on the wings of bad tidings" for a second the Night Lord almost smiled "Mention of your name has always brought bad tidings" he shut his eyes for a moment against tearing pain that refused to leave him and then made a careless seeming gesture towards the woman on the couch.  
  
Whatever he had expected it had not been this, this nonchalance. And he raised a question eyebrow "I had almost expected it, when Ash didn't return after she wrote and told us she had sent him" then Bran saw the deep and fathomless grief, almost that of a parent for a child and his respect for the man grew. It made the next thing he had to say much more difficult "I always prayed she wouldn't find me, for this reason if for no other. But I am informed she has a final chance"   
  
He watched the Night Lord's face as sudden fury worked over it and remained burning in his eyes "You killed her?" he saw Hannah reach out and observed the slight movement he made to stop her touching him "I did, it was necessary" he heard Ash choke behind him "You told me you didn't!" Theirry's eyes flashed back to him and he saw a hope there that he didn't want to break even as he slid back into the chair "Still keeping faith with the soulmate principle Lord Descoudres?" he saw him wince and realised that the fact he had been Lynx's soulmate was what he had been trying to hide from Hannah.  
  
He couldn't spare time now though, as far as he knew every second could count. "We were fighting, over the Night Blade" he saw three pairs of shocked faces and waved their concern away "I didn't covet the thing, I made it, it was my responsibility to destroy it" he saw understanding flash into at least one pair of eyes in the room before he continued "I mocked Lynx with not knowing enough of what she carried to defend it so fervently." Deep sorrow marked his face for a moment before it passed back into the expressionless mask it had been since his supposed triumph.   
  
"I had momentarily forgotten that she was soul bound to the blade" then he shook his head in savage denial of his last words "I knew, I hoped that by taunting her she would put it aside and let me destroy it." He paused for a moment as if he had to struggle to put that last moment into words "She beat me" something like pride lit his eyes emerald green for a moment "I truly though I was going to die, then something seemed to leave her. It was if that blazing light that kept her moving had gone out" he shook his head, "I'd managed to get my weapon up to her throat and she looked at me for a moment" his voice stopped for a moment "And then she told me exactly what to do" his lip curled up at one corner "And I did it, for the greater good I told myself" he met the Night Lords eyes with a look of self condemnation "And now I find that I can't give a damn about the greater good"  
  
***  
  
There was a still pause where the only breathing in the room belonged to Hannah before Theirry could gather enough of his scattered wits to speak. "You spoke of a chance" he let his words die, he alone out of those in the room could understand FallenStar's terrible guilt and grief at having killed his soulmate, and he had no old soul promises to keep locked in his heart. He returned his mind to the present as he spoke again "Yes, the soul that was bound within the blade told me that 'the Dawn circle' with my help could bring her back" Theirry used his mind working through all the possibilities within centuries of Night World knowledge before he stuck on the final possibility.   
  
"The Dawn circle would have been her name for Circle Daybreak witches, but how are you to help?" He watched FallenStar shift slightly before taking from the pocket of black jeans a black sapphire. "This was in Lynx's hair when she, when I" he shrugged "I suspect your witches would find it useful.   
  
Theirry understood, it was the Necromancers stone he had paid for as a gift. He accepted it from FallenStar with something like relief, he would give it into the hands of Mother Cybele and if there was a chance, even the slightest he suspected she would find it. As he turned to leave Hannah finally spoke.  
  
"Your Lynx's soulmate and yet you killed her, you forged the Night Blade and yet you don't look a day over twenty five, what are you Bran FallenStar" that oddly sad half smile tugged at his mouth again as he answered "Great lady, I am but a humble shape shifter within your home" that deep sarcasm Theirry pondered would have done his soulmate proud, even as Ash laughed. FallenStar then looked more serious "I was adopted, against my will mind you, into the house of Drache some five hundred years before your soulmate was born. I am a Dragon" He saw the slightly shaken look on his soulmates face as she contemplated the man in front of her and then she smiled apparently satisfied and left.   
  
Theirry turned to do the same but FallenStar spoke in ancient Latin from behind him "I swear guest right in your home, to lord and lady I am bound in defence until the sun sets on my time here" then his tone became less formal although the Latin remained the same "And if you can aid my lady then my debt to you is eternal" Theirry continued to think on that as he exited the room, having a Dragon in your debt was not a bad thing. And in the times to come it would be more than useful, if only they could accomplish the impossible.   
  



	21. Part 21

She was in darkness, although all around her seemed to hang bundles of, stuff seemed the only relevant word. Almost like silkworm cocoons. She reached up and touched one and was suddenly arrested with a vision of her twin brother smilingly throwing a tin can at her. And she wondered, was everything here like that?  
  
***  
  
It was to a hushed library that Hue Orendra came with what she hoped were the answers to the Night Lords prayers. And that of the odd Dragon that had been his houseguest this past month, growing tetchier and tetchier; but speaking to no one bar Lord Theirry and Lady Hannah. Ash Redfern had been the same, even his precious soulmate couldn't seem to drag more than a few words out of him.  
  
"Hue, I believe you have something for us?" Theirry's light gentle voice pierced her reminiscence and the young Vietnamese witch looked up to find herself regarded by every person in the library; and most disturbingly by a pair of very deep, very draconic eyes. She was aware she had interrupted a conversation but it was important "Yes sir, I believe I do" The Night Lord inclined his head "Speak then" she paused a moment and then dragging herself together told what they had discovered "The stone that we were given with the body" she ignored the sharp intakes of breath to continue "Is the key to the entire dilemma, but however the solution is not without risk" she adjusted her glasses nervous at all this attention "If the stone is broken, which during our research we have decided is the only feasible way of releasing the soul trapped within. There is an unfortunately large chance that the soul could be shattered and dispersed"   
  
There was a very long silence before the Night Lord spoke "No, that cannot be countenanced, what is the other alternative?" She stayed very still for a moment "The other alternative is impossible, you would have to have someone who is linked to her, a twin, or perhaps a soulmate." She saw something like pain flicker over the features of the silent Dragon. She wanted to press the subject but Ash Redfern was at her elbow and was thanking her while he moved her towards the door. Without realising it she was outside and alone, and wondering what was to be done.  
  
***  
  
Inside there was less doubt, all eyes had turned to Bran FallenStar who was staring fixedly at the carpet "You heard the lady FallenStar" that was Ash "You're her only chance" he couldn't answer, he'd hoped and prayed that it would all be simple. A spell an incantation, blood sacrifice, anything but this. "You truly believe this is the only way?" his voice was flat, its normal expressionless tone broken by exhaustion. Theirry nodded "I cannot sanction the breaking of the stone" Bran shook his head "Very well, I will try"  
  
***  
  
As he walked into the room where the witches had been working he was filled with a flat sense of foreboding that he couldn't confide. What if she didn't want to come back? To most people that would have been a ridiculous idea, but they hadn't seen her eyes at the end, and the relief written large in them. But he had to try, he knew now why Theirry had dedicated his immortality to finding Hannah, the feeling of being totally connected to a person was terrible, but to be without that person. That was worse.   
  
He sat on the edge of the couch he could sense Ash and the others somewhere over his left shoulder, but all he could see was the pale lifeless features of the woman in front of him and he could feel clenched in his fist the freezing darkness of the stone that could resurrect her, the Necromancers stone. He reached forward without thinking about it and brushed back a long blood red curl that had washed across her cheek, fingers brushing marble skin and the stone he held boomed with midnight light, and he felt something rip free and all was darkness.  
  
***  
  
Theirry caught him as he fell, dead weight, and placed him in the chair next to the bed where Lynx lay, watching as the light in the Necromancers stone blazed even higher and praying under his breath in a language long gone for the deliverance of both of them.  
  
***  
  
Black-out, complete and utter darkness, but the darkness glowed. He supposed it was only experience that showed him the way. Before you can possess a dark fire then you must master the shades that birthed it. But there were objects in the darkness and in curiosity he reached out and touched one....  
  
***  
  
"You must try harder!" he was seeing from a third party view a tall red head man standing over a girl who possessed hair of the same hue although slightly darker, the pair of them were shades of blood and fire. "But Grandfather.." it was a child's voice, piping and wavering slightly, but the mans fist whipped out and smacked her backwards. "No buts child, you just do as I say" he saw the bruise on her cheek blacken and disappear but the bruise in the golden eyes remained long into the next set of exercises.   
  
***  
  
He was back in that twilight staring at the cocoons that surrounded him, each one was a memory, he suspected that most of them were bad. He couldn't bring himself to think of them now; not when there was a chance of finding her.  
  
He wandered the half light of the stone for what felt like lifetimes before to his surprised eyes a glow dawned on the horizon. Flickering fire against the midnight blue and he broke into a light run, and there hand outstretched towards one of the cocoons was Lynx, there was something different about her here than there was elsewhere. A serenity that she hadn't had before for all her icy self possession. He wanted to call out, to alert her to his presence but the urge to touch was deeper, to see whether what had always bound them together still existed. Even here past the threshold of life.   
  
He crossed the intervening space with breathless speed and placed gentle fingers to her shoulder, there was no arching connection as there had been before, but golden eyes turned towards him in quiet appraisal "What do you want?" it wasn't the normal demand he would have expected but a low flat question. "It's not a question of want" he answered, surprised in his own mind at his ability to prevaricate. "No?" he shook his head "It's a question of need"  
  
***  
  
'A question of need' those simple words caught and tugged, and she followed them, absently holding his hand. There. One of those odd cocoons, they would explain to her the mystery of this man, who she didn't know but felt as if she should. She reached up and touched the silver threads of moonlight that bound them with their entwined hands and was catapulted forward.  
  
***  
  
They stood in a park watching a pair on a hill, one was obviously her and the other him. She looked towards the him that accompanied her but he was riveted so she returned her attention to the scene unfolding before them.  
  
"For god's sake FallenStar, what do you want with me if not to hire me?" she was incensed but none of it showed in her bored languorous tone but her eyes were flashing a pure crystalline blue. The man raked a hand back through silver blonde hair he looked frustrated, no hidden emotions there "I have no bloody idea why I wanted to see you Lynx, okay?" She raised an eyebrow, well she had a name for him now, she knew she was Lynx from earlier memories; He must be FallenStar, but above her the conversation continued   
  
"Why not? We've met what? Twice? You must have some idea?" she watched them and had the uncanny idea that something deep flashed in his eyes, "Yeah I have a small idea" then he grabbed her and kissed her. A knife had flashed momentarily but it tumbled now unheeded to the grass as she lay almost limp in his arms, a second later she managed to break backwards and her fingers limed by moonlight were trembling "You have to be out of your mind!" the man grinned and looked as if a thousand cares had lifted from his shoulders "No"  
  
The silence was deafening before she spoke again "By all the thousand lesser hells, I'm cursed" then she paused again "Soulmates. With you!"  
  
Soulmates, even as the familiar greyness that heralded the end of a recollection enveloped her that word sang out. It was important she knew, and spoke of trust and love, something that almost none of the other memories she had touched showed.   
  
She looked at him again as they stood in the deep blue something that was the landscape, then she spoke "FallenStar?" he turned to her eyes open and a deep shade of green than shone even here "Bran" she nodded "Bran, I don't like it here" he nodded she could feel a chill wind catching at the leather jacket she wore which provided no shelter. He caught at her hand "Let me take you back"   
  
Take her back, she hadn't thought of that, to go back to all that she had known, all that these memories had shown her. She didn't know if she could, it had driven her near to the edge of sanity before, could she bear to do it all again? The other question was could she bear to stay, never to know the rush of fresh blood into her veins, to see her brother again, to force grief where she had never expected mourning at her passage?  
  
She had an idea that her own pain would be easier to bear than the thought of all these pains given to others on her behalf, she looked up her eyes a clouded bronze "Yes"  
  
It was one word but it wreaked the same havoc as the most powerful of midnight spells. The world around them shattered, and all she saw as she fell was a sliver light like a lifeline before her eyes.   
  
  



	22. Epilouge

The Poem i have viely butchered in the first segment belongs to somone else  
whos name i cannot remeber unfortunalty, it can be found somewhere in  
the Diablo 2 manual ! All my thanks to those people who do contribute  
remember you inspire us all :)  
  
"What fires burn within my heart and force me to contend  
With the perils that await me at this tragic journeys end?  
  
I have walked the roads that lead to Hell, I have challenged all but fate.  
I have fought and bled and carried on just to reach this final gate.  
And now this task before me looms, this dire deed undone;  
I shall make my stand against thee until the battles won.  
  
What fear or wound could ever still this last defiant cry,  
As I stand against the Shadow 'neath the endless burning sky?"  
  
The chords of the guitar rang out across the tiered lawns towards the roiling grey oceans as Bran FallenStar moved they came to a defiantly sad end, he crouched down next to the singer "It's well done" and she turned to him golden eyes smiling.  
  
"I have had more time for things like that lately" he brushed reverent fingers through blood red hair and returned her smile with one of his own "Indeed you have, but I feel a but coming" her own eyes dimmed down to the burnished copper colour that he had come to know best. "But I have let my business commitments go for far to long"  
  
He stilled at that, remembering.   
  
He had awoken in Theirry's mansion exactly three hours after he had gone into the Necromancers stone in search of Lynx; the stone had been pulsing an unnatural black light. Lynx hadn't been breathing. He had been able to hear Theirry exhorting him to come away, to finally give up. How could he explain that that wasn't possible, not an option, never. But as the hours had passed into a day and that day had passed into night he had accepted the inevitable and had reached out to touch her cold face one last time. And the Necromancers stone had exploded.  
  
The tiny shards had vaporised when they hit the air, and under his hand Lynx's face had flushed with heat and her eyes had opened showing a pale glimmering gold.  
  
Then the soulmate connection had hit him like a freight train, sealing them together again even as he offered her his throat, she was after all a half starved vampire. He had taken her away then, from all of then. The Night world, Circle Daybreak and her numerous clientele to the house he owned on the English south coast; for recovery and rest.  
  
However she needed to go, and he'd let her, but he could hardly bear the thought, she could die. Again. "Lynx..." he had been about to put forward an eminently reasonable suggestion about staying here, he had a painting to finish after all when she placed a single finger over his lips "No, Bran" she shook her head "I owe you my life, literally, but this is what I do and what I am" he saw the darkness in her eyes and felt justified in interrupting "It's driving you insane love, I can't stand by and watch that happen"   
  
***  
  
Lynx listened but she wasn't really hearing, she could feel the curtailing of her freedoms that even with the best of intentions her soulmate was trying to loop around her like chains. "It's not, it never was" her eyes were lucid if pained. She knew her being this open was rare but in this case it had to be done "What drove me so close was the lack of choice in what I did, you know the twisted pleasure I derive from pain"  
  
She could see even now, the memory in the globe that she had always tried to forget, of her hands running with the blood of children and the fact that the blood had, excited, her. She knew now though that her strength had been tried and she held her destiny in both hands "Anyway" her grin was feral, I have a few little tiny bits of revenge to extract.  
  
***  
  
Bran sighed as she slid to her feet, he should have expected this. Despite the fact she was more open and sparkled in his company there was still a core of darkness to her that he couldn't erase. That stopped him dead, erase? He loved Lynx, she was his soulmate and to change her that fundamentally would make her something and someone her didn't know; he cherished the wildness and independence that made her Lynx Redfern, the Night Blade, his soulmate.  
  
Bran stood up and wrapped an arm around her shoulders and began walking he finally spoke "This revenge then...... can I help?"  
  
  



End file.
